The Battle of Yellowstone - A Story from The Human War
by TonyJC
Summary: The Battle of Yellowstone was the turning point in the Second Ethereal War, celebrated by humanity far and wide in their crusade against the Ethereal menace, but not everything the books about this bloody battle say are true... This story is a spin-off from the fanfic "The Human War", made by generatedname. This story has the author's permission and blessing to exist.
1. The Coming Tide

5th of May, 2035 - Former U.S. National Park of Yellowstone

The old truck's engine gave a guttural roar as it made its way through the old roads in Yellowstone's Haven. More like it followed, in their backs men and women that would decide the fate of this Haven's inhabitants, to protect and stem the tide of the alien advance. At least, that's what he hoped.

Many hidden towns and fortified settlements around the world that had resisted the aliens and their puppets had been lost back in March, their people taken or butchered by the alien puppets. New Acadia, Alesia, Bornholm, Lushan… gone in the first week of the retaliations, like a wave of terror and destruction that swept throughout the entire world.

The Resistance Network, their only link to the outside world and the other Havens, had lost so many frequencies in that one week that Yellowstone's own radio host had broken down while they were live. With that loss, fear spread, and there had been rumors that people wanted to leave the Haven and surrender themselves to the puppet government.

But Yellowstone wouldn't let itself be subjected to a slaughter. To Jebediah Norman's knowledge, Yellowstone was the largest Haven in North America, being founded by the remnants of the old United States military. Their defenses and weaponry, though old and underpowered compared to what the puppet government possessed, were still large and robust. And those attacks had better prepared them for what was to come, and in late April, a mere week ago, it had finally came.

The puppets would make one of its largest air raids in North America, using a full squadron of radar-impervious gunships to strike from the air. But, with XCOM's help, and of course, hubris from the puppets, had turned their assault into a massacre on their side. Hidden surface-to-air missile sites and anti-air artillery had shot down every single aircraft, and whatever freak had managed to arrive on land unscathed was then met with hunting parties on horseback and armored fighting vehicles. It had been a resounding victory for sure, one that raised the spirits of the people and the morale of the militia.

But now, it has all changed, and the entire Haven could feel their fate being woven by what was to come.

The trucks drove over the deserted roads of the Haven's outskirts, the only sign of life being the odd young teen or child being accompanied by a guardian that was either only a few years older than them, or too old to be of any use in the fight. Their parents had been recalled back to service, and those now old enough to serve were swept by the conscription, implemented after the puppet retaliations months ago. Their very existence had been threatened, and although most of the people in the Haven were ex-soldiers turned farmers and workers, this had been a wake-up call to take up arms again.

Everything they had was taken into commision, from mothballed armored vehicles to the rarely used trucks, and even things he'd never thought they even had in their possession. Self-propelled artillery, a fleet of bulldozer tractors that prepared the Haven's last lines of defense, and somehow they even got the tanks moving. Jebediah thought of it as surreal, as many weeks ago one would have had to march on foot towards the defensive positions while the more agile units used horses to get around. And now with all of these vehicles in action, he wondered where they got their fuel.

Needless to say, they didn't have an abundant amount of it, and they needed to make the best of it. The truck they were in was a tight fit, as an entire platoon worth of soldiers were crammed into its tarpless back, to the point that some unlucky soldiers were forced to sit on the bed of the truck. Jebediah himself was squeezed right between Staff Sergeant Smith and Private Kyle, the oldest and the newest members of the squad respectively. Alicia, Javier, Fergus and Oliver were on the opposite benches, while the twin brothers, Thomas and Jackson, had picked the short straw and were sitting on the uncomfortable metal floor, back to back. They were the platoon's weapons squad, meant to provide the necessary firepower to take out any threat that might endanger them all, let it be vehicles or a numerical superiority.

The squad was composed by two sections, each containing a machine gun team and an anti-tank team. Staff Sergeant Smith led them, a man in his forties that always reminisced about the past and was doing it again with a poor guy to his left. Fergus was Jebediah's section leader, and thankfully for him he himself was the leader of the team, but there was also a slight con. Oliver sat in front of him, his teammate and pseudo-friend who often boasted and was as arrogant as he was careless. He was responsible in providing Jebediah with backup and ammo, while also carrying the tripod for his new toy.

Jebediah looked at the weapon resting between his legs, made by the very same organization that had helped them last week. It was a four-barreled automatic gauss cannon, bulky, box-shaped, and ugly to look at. Despite its aesthetic drawbacks however, it was one mean son of a gun, its projectiles able to chew through wood as if it was cardboard. A good match against the puppet weaponry, as they were based off the very same technology, but many in the Haven did not enjoy this rare luxury.

"Think they'll let you keep it?" he heard, and Jebediah looked upwards to see Oliver sitting with his looted gauss rifle in his lap, black and with a scribbled over ADVENT logo on its side.

"It was high time I got something nice you know." Jebediah responded, cocking an eyebrow, "You spent an entire week flinging that rifle like it was your dick."

"That's because _I_ earned it, Jeb." he pointed to himself, omitting the fact that he only scavenged it from the still smoldering corpse of a puppet during last week's attack. Jebediah tried not to roll his eyes. "Besides, maybe I'll get something better. That spook talked about finding aliens on the field, and you know what those freaks carry? Plasma guns."

"Plasma guns." Jebediah echoed, his opportunity finally arriving. This one he'd been saving for a good while now. "I think the Casanova of Grant Village would have an easier time wooing one. That last one had her eyes all over you." Jebediah finished with a laugh, and the rest of the team hooted and chuckled. Oliver's face contourned in a frown.

"Oh, come on Jeb, that's just nasty!" he protested among the mirthful men. And of course, before finding his beloved rifle, the squad had found Oliver doing the unthinkable. Prodding at a dead Viper's chest plate.

"Careful Tennison," came Javier on the other side of the truck, the section leader of the squad's fireteam. "The captain might accuse you of fraternizing with the enemy. God knows how many times you'll try." The men's collective guffaw had turned him deaf, and Jebediah tried to contain his own laugh.

"Oh, not you Woods!" Oliver said, a slight red tinge on his skin. "I swear, I was just curious! I mean, a snake with tits? You don't see that every day."

"You said that before, man." Fergus spoke, his head thrown back to rest on a satchel that cradled his head against the truck's railing, eyes closed.

"And it rings true," Oliver punctuated each word, and like an afterthought, turned to Jebediah with a finger raised at him. "Oh, and you, Jeb. You don't get to make fun of this."

"Why not?" he almost wanted to snicker, feeling a little petty. "Teaches you to mess around in my locker."

Oliver's eyebrows shot up, "No way, that?" he asked as if it was something hard to understand, "I was just trying to help you out man!"

Jebediah frowned, the words "Help?" hissing out of his mouth, and before he knew it, he lost control of it, "By taking my God damned letter and reading-"

"Alright, cut it out you two!" Staff Sergeant Smith ordered, his usually relaxed voice now stern and cutting through Jebediah's speech. "Take it elsewhere privates, and try to cool down."

Jebediah deflated, rubbing his cheeks to get rid of the flush of anger and embarrassment from his face. He hated himself for easily losing his cool, and Oliver's presence never helped him in that regard. Even now he could feel his heart beating, and he took deep breaths to calm himself as Oliver spoke.

"Sorry sarge, just killing time. You know how we are." Oliver said, casual as if it was a daily occurrence, though it probably was, considering how short Jebediah's temper was. However, now he needed to reassure the staff sergeant of his commitment, again.

"Yeah, we're just fooling around, staff sergeant." Jebediah said and swallowed, putting up his best smile as he tried to sound convincing to his superior. Smith's face was skeptical, his eyes going back and forth between Jebediah and Oliver.

"Well then, if that is true," -his brows turned to a mild scowl- "then I hope that Captain Zheng won't complain about you two's attitudes when we arrive on site." Smith turned to the Rogers twins, who were both staring at him with grins on their faces. "And that includes you both."

"Oh, come on sarge," Thomas, at least Jebediah thought it was Thomas, said. "The captain already hates us. Might as well make the men laugh before we hit the dust."

"Wait, already hates us?" Jackson asked his brother, straining his neck to look at him. "Captain's been giving us the bad eye ever since we were assigned to him."

"And he will give you two more than a bad eye if you keep it up." the staff sergeant said, arms resting on his knees as he leaned forward. "We're his _favorite_ platoon, you know."

"We may have something to do with that." Thomas's smile was smug, "Our quips and skill are unrivaled in this company. Captain Zheng just doesn't want to admit it!"

"You gotta know when's a lost cause, Thomas." Oliver chimed in, "The captain has a stick so far up his ass he can't help but yell every time he opens his mouth."

Even at that did the staff sergeant laugh, a series of wheezes that wrinkled his old face even further. "Don't let the lieutenant hear you say that, private Tennison." Smith managed to chuckle out, nodding towards the truck's front. "He will relegate you something worse than shit disposal."

"He already did." Oliver shrugged, his tone casual, "Several times in fact."

Jebediah frowned in confusion, and the staff sergeant even seemed to be taken aback. "Wha- When?" Smith stammered out.

Oliver pursed his lips, looking away as the staff sergeant, Jebediah, and the twins looked up at him. "Four weeks ago." he responded, turning to face them, "He didn't like my… fraternization with private Bourne from third platoon, despite the fact that we're both on the same rank."

The truck roared again, filling the silence that had crept up. The staff sergeant leaned back onto the bench, chuckling softly as he shook his head. "Now that does explain some things."

"Oliver?" Thomas called, bringing the man's attention to the twins.

"You're my hero." Jackson said next.

Oliver grinned. "Hey now, I charge for personal classes. I'm a professional you know?" he turned to Jebediah, an eyebrow raised. "Maybe you need one Jeb? _God knows_ you need one for sweet Moira."

"Oh, shut up." Jebediah snapped, turning away as to end their conversation and hide the oncoming flush on his face. His eyes looked at the receding road, and the truck riding behind theirs, hearing the twins and Oliver speak in their ever lively tones. Since they were the last ones in, they were seated at the end of the truck's bed, while the lieutenant and the other sergeants were seated near the front. Kyle Gilles, Fergus's newest teammate, sat just beside the half-door of the truck's back, quiet and with his head held down as he stared at the space between his bobbing legs, arms rested on his knees with his hands clasped.

It took Jebediah a moment to realize that Kyle had not joined them in the conversation, and he had a hunch as to why. A quick look at the seventeen year-old teenager showed how out of place he looked among them, not even wearing actual body armor. He wore old digital grey patterned fatigues, a green load-bearing vest, and a baseball cap that had once been red, but faded to pink. Where the rest of them looked like a unit, he stood out like a sore thumb. A draftee from the conscription program implemented by General Bannon, Kyle Gilles looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here.

"Hey," Jebediah bumped his shoulder, "you alright?"

Kyle jumped at the bump, turning towards Jebediah like he'd seen a ghost. "What? Did the sergeant say something?" he asked, his face and tone marred with anxiety.

"No," Jebediah answered, keeping his tone gentle but for a small half-smile creeping up on his lips at the man's obliviousness, "I said, are you okay?"

Kyle blew the air out of his lungs, shoulder slumping as if a weight had been taken off of them. He looked away momentarily before turning back to Jebediah. "It's just… well," -his skin gave off a tinge of red- "I'm making my peace."

Jebediah's eyes widened, appalled. "Come on, man, don't say that." he chided Kyle, bringing up a hand to grasp his shoulder, and shook him lightly, "If anyone's got a right to be nervous, it's me."

That seemed to amuse Kyle at the least, a smile forming on his lips, "No way, you're army. You have training and experience. Me? I only have two months of basic."

"Two months to tell you the do's and don'ts." Jebediah countered him, "There's nothing more important than knowing how to react to a situation. How well did you take basic?"

Kyle scowled at nothing in particular, staring off into Jebediah's side, "Terrible?" he phrased it more as a question than an answer, then shook his head. "I don't get it. You said you'll be nervous out there? How?"

A smirk formed on Jebediah's mouth, _Well, ain't that a secret?_

"Well," he drew the word out, before continuing, "Last week, when we were searching the hills and forests for stragglers, I was practically shitting my pants the entire damned time. Just thinking that sometime now one of'em will pop out of nowhere and caps me right then and there where I'm standing." he shrugged, "No chance to fight back."

That seemed to fill Kyle with some trepidation, and Jebediah grimaced.

"Then how do you deal with it?" Kyle asked, now wary.

Seeking to salvage that blunder, he spoke, "Well, for one, focus on the mission." Jebediah held up a finger, then uncurled a second, "Two, jokes help a lot to reduce the tension."

Kyle snorted, shaking his head. "Yeah, and jokes will save me when shit hits the fan?"

"You don't know that shit's gonna to hit the fan." Jebediah retorted, a little flustered. For having trained for two months, close to finishing basic, Kyle was awfully jittery. Seemingly more so than even Jebediah himself. Something had to be done, and he needed help for that.

He turned towards the brothers on the floor, and called out over the roar of the engine, "Hey Rogers!"

Both twins turned to him, almost too robotic in their sameness, but Jebediah knew it was just an act between them to creep them all out. "Yeah?" they both said when they turned to him, and it still sent a chill down Jebediah's spine.

Shrugging it off, he addressed them, "Kyle here needs some encouragement." Jebediah nodded towards the teenager, "He's got the classic case of the battle jitters, and I'm sure you both are qualified to remedy this situation."

"Now wait a minute-" Kyle was saying when Jackson suddenly spoke.

"Oh, what's wrong rookie?" Jackson said, tapping the man's leg with the back of his hand. "You got stuck with the best platoon in the company! You won't envy anyone that didn't get to be with us."

"Whatever happens dude, we got your back, alright?" Thomas added, head pulled back over his twin's shoulder to look at Kyle. "Unless, of course, the staff sergeant decides to split the squad that is. Then you're on your own with sourmood Fergus."

"You don't have to tell me he's sour." Kyle said, looking over at said man with a glance. "I swear, he is just... gloom personified."

Jebediah snorted, following Kyle's gaze to look on the offending man, his head cushioned by his pack and eyes closed. Hollow cheeks, a jutting chin, and a hawkish nose, Fergus was not that much of a talking man, and often wanted to do things alone. It was thanks to the volunteer shortage before the retaliations that he was left without an assistant for the longest time, though some… well, most would fault him for that.

Fergus was not an amicable man, not like the twins and the staff sergeant. Like Thomas had said, sour was the best description towards him, from his comments that often ruined bouts of laughter to his fatalistic view on everything. It often seemed that the only thing that cheered him up is the prospect of blowing something up, which was rare.

By the time Jebediah had turned back to Kyle, he found him engrossed with the twins and Oliver, pretty much leaving him out of the conversation as the trio relentlessly pushed the rookie with words. They had already extracted every ounce of Kyle's origins days ago when he had been assigned to them, and now they seemed to be scouring every nook and cranny in his remaining psych to either tease him or bringing him at ease. Just like how they'd done it with Jebediah some two years ago.

It wouldn't be long before they reached the Old Faithful district, a town in its own right by its sheer size and population. Being the farthest western point in the Yellowstone Haven, it saw use as a refugee camp, growing to eventually becoming a settlement housing over ten thousand people with military oversight over a decade ago. Now, it was a formal district, and a focus point in the defense of the western front.

Passing by its southern perimeter, all pretense of being a deserted tourist attraction was gone, as what seemed like hundreds of men and women worked around the site on its north-eastern section. It became clear what they were doing when the truck neared the exit of the settlement, as tractors were digging trenches and wide, deep ditches. The mismatching and lack of uniforms on the workers told of being from the militia, as they toiled with pickaxes and shovels and sawed logs onsite, building what would be the main, and last, line of defense on this side of Yellowstone.

Jebediah tried not to think in the _ifs_. They usually led him towards anxious and morbid thoughts, but sometimes he couldn't help himself. _If_ the lines further north of here couldn't be held, then they would have to retreat back here. And _if_ this position was lost… then there would be no stopping the enemy from pouring deeper into the park. They could be outflanked, outmaneuvered, outgunned, and outnumbered, and he was sure they only wanted to keep those last two true.

He blew the air out of his nose and shook his head, now that the truck was taking them off into the woods and heading north. The conversation between the men had died down, their destination finally drawing close, up until a snap was heard up front.

"Hey fellas!" someone said, and Jebediah, along with the entirety of the truck, turned towards the front. Through the open window to the truck's cabin, another soldier beside the driver was looking back at them, a radio in his hand. "Command wants the trucks out of harm's way. We'll be stopping about four miles out from your destination."

The men did not like that one bit. Groans and whines of 'What?' and 'Come on!' filled the back of the truck, masking Jebediah's groan, for he had to carry his heavy-as-hell machine gun through the rest of the way.

It kept up until one man near the front of the truck stood up, using the railing to support himself so as to not get thrown off by the truck with its jostling. "Alright, alright! Quit your whining and cry somewhere else!" shouted Lieutenant Bourne, the commanding officer of the platoon and a beast of a man with his height and build, "One ride on this truck and it's already made you soft?"

"Come on, Lieutenant Bourne, we have to carry all our shit there now." Thomas whined, "We at least had horses to pull our stuff there when we marched!"

"You know why, private?" The lieutenant asked, as if daring him to know, "That's because your lucky asses were classified as _motorized_ infantry at the last minute. So consider yourselves fortunate. Others are still classified as light infantry."

Jebediah mocked a hiss at the lieutenant's words, knowing how the words _light infantry_ had nothing light about them. Those men would've had to walk the entire trip with their gear on their back. "He got you there, Thomas."

"I'm just sayin'," Thomas replied, hands held up, "if we're in trucks, then we might as well go the entire way, right Oliver?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely." Oliver said, "What's the point of stopping there?"

"Because, privates," the lieutenant said, "our dear colonel, who in turn told our great captain, and at last me, your benevolent overlord, ordered us to do so." Jebediah felt more than he saw the truck pull over then, as the suspensions of the truck creaked and whined as it left the road and jostled them all in their seats, even forcing the lieutenant to sit before he tumbled. The truck grounded to a halt just beside the road, and the lieutenant once again stood. "And now, I want you all off this damned truck and prepare to march!"

"You heard the man." Staff Sergeant Smith spoke, relaxed and seemingly unnerved by the lieutenant's outburst. He leaned forward and rubbed Thomas's head with his knuckles. "Otherwise we'll make mules out of you."

Jebediah smirked, watching Thomas grumble as he, his brother, and the rest of the men sitting on the floor got off the truck first. After them, the men on the benches were next, though hampered with having to lower their heavy weaponry first. Jebediah and Oliver lowered the autocannon and tripod along with Alicia and Javier, who lowered their Javelin guided missile launcher and ammunition. Fergus was the lone wolf though, preferring to jump with the heavy launcher on his body than handing it to someone else first, like his actual assistant.

Afterwards, time was spent checking their gear as the other trucks were dismounting their men and materiel, filling the sparsely forested field with men and women of the Third Battalion. They were the last of the reinforcing waves towards this front, as the rest of the Second Division had already been onsite for the better part of two days, digging in and setting up positions to so as to be able to work with their battlefield, meanwhile they had been forced to hold back for an entire day.

The reason they had lagged behind the rest of the division was because of their supplies, stretched thin enough that they had to wait for the logistics department to, as Captain Zheng put it, "unfuck themselves" and provide them with the proper munitions for their heavy weaponry. From where Jebediah sat on top of a stack of ammo cans, stuffing his rucksack with extra magazines and batteries, he saw mortar tubes and heavy machine guns being tended to by their operators in a heavy weapons platoon, oiling and lubricating their innards so as to not jam.

He took a look at his weapon then, feeling little smug when he remembered the XCOM spook saying that its internal mechanism did not allow any jamming. There was no firing pin, or faulty ammunition, just some magnetic mumbo jumbo that propelled pellet-sized projectiles using electricity, or something close to it. It was the reason on why it needed a battery, though it did not look like any Jebediah had ever seen, looking like one of those cans of soda you would find in the woods, though smaller and so much heavier.

"You're doing it again." he heard Oliver say, and Jebediah looked upward to see him approach with his puppet-made rifle in hand. He was already donning his helmet and ballistic glasses, and, just like the drill sergeant had said so long ago, looked ready to kill. "You sure that you don't want some time alone with it in the woods?"

Jebediah snorted, grunting as he brought the machine gun upwards to rest on his lap, and patted it gently, "Now that you thought about it…"

"No, stop, forget I said anything." Oliver interrupted him, coming to sit beside him on the crate, the wood creaking under their combined weight. "You think Kyle will do good?"

Jebediah raised an eyebrow, dusting one of the barrels of his machine gun. "He needs some time in the field is all. He's almost completed basic before being assigned to us."

"Yeah, but he's just too, you know, twitchy." Oliver said, with actual worry on his face, "I often look at his trigger finger to see if it's off the fucking trigger."

Jebediah snorted, "He'll do fine, come on man. Kyle's not worse than me on the battle jitters." Though in reality, Jebediah _hoped_ Kyle wasn't worse than him. After all, he had almost shot his own foot off from anxiousness during last week's attempted raid, and he still remembered how heavy his heart was during the whole affair.

"Except you aren't half-baked goods, Jeb. I trust ya." Oliver gave a smirk as he patted Jebediah's shoulder, but then his smile faltered. "As for Kyle... well, if anything happens, Fergus will be there to deal with him. Poor bastard."

"Fergus is not _that_ psychotic, dude." Jebediah chuckled lightly, "What, battle's over and we find out Kyle's buried six feet deep in the woods?"

Oliver chuckled this time, and Jebediah would've said more had he not heard a somewhat familiar sound. It was the reeve of a car's motor, much more lesser than a truck's but still loud enough to be noticeable to him and the other men in the field. Jebediah turned to the north, and there, on the road some hundreds of meters away, was a Humvee heading south. It was a light truck, almost like a boxy car, painted green, armored and armed with a manned heavy machine gun at its top. Beside the road, Jebediah spotted a group of men - all officers including their own Lieutenant Bourne and Captain Zheng of their company. In there, Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey stood with them, the leader of their battalion.

The Humvee soon stopped beside the group, and a man stepped out of its back passenger seat. Unlike them, he did not wear a ballistic rig or helmet, just his uniform and a cap, and he approached the saluting officers with a slight limp.

"Who's he?" Jebediah asked, not able to see any rank or insignia by the distance.

"An officer, considering his uniform and wrinkles." was Oliver's answer and joke, adding nothing to what Jebediah had assumed. Even after years in the military, Jebediah had not bothered to memorize the names of officers above his lieutenant colonel, something that was annoying him now. Although he could ask-

"That's a colonel, private." a voice cut in suddenly, and Jebediah jumped off the crate when he realized it had come straight from his shoulder, a "Jesus!" escaping his lips.

Staff Sergeant Smith stood there, hands on his hips as he chuckled, while Oliver cackled. Jebediah bawled his fists as he scowled at the indignation, "Fuck me sarge, why'd ya gotta do that?"

"To keep you aware at all times, Private Norman." answered the sergeant with a cocky smile, rounding the crates to stand beside him. "Next thing you know, they're inside your head," his voice turned low, "raping your mind."

"What?" Oliver chuckled out as Jebediah stared at his sergeant dumbly, trying to make sense of his words, and failing.

"It's true." The staff sergeant said with a shrug. "It was all the talk back then. You know those little big-headed aliens? Sectoids?" At Jebediah's nod, he continued, "We kept hearing about how they could mess with your head. Drive you insane, make you want to eat the flesh of the living, that sort of stuff."

"Yeah, that's gotta be bullshit, right?" Oliver asked, still with his smile on his face like what the sergeant had just told them had been a joke, and Smith turned to him, a mild annoyance on his face.

"I'm afraid not, private." Smith said, "It was pretty much confirmed by every state's national guard, including Wyoming's." he turned back to Jebediah, "They do fuck with your minds."

Jebediah had honestly nothing to say to that, wanting to incline to what Oliver had said. Of course, during training, they had been told about these sectoids, and how they looked like. Grey skinned, thin faces without a mouth and nose, and large eyes that did not have pupils. They are supposedly short, up to five feet tall, and lanky, which did not paint an intimidating picture, and yet, the instructors told of how dangerous they were.

However, that's all they had said about these sectoids. They are dangerous, but that's it, and then immediately moved on to the puppets as they were their primary enemy. And what the staff sergeant just told them...

"Sir," Jebediah began to speak with apprehension, "Why didn't the instructors tell us about this?"

Staff Sergeant Smith raised an eyebrow, and his lips were pressed thin, like he'd tasted something sour. "I'm guessing they don't want to believe it." he said, staring downward as his arms crossed, now pensive. "I remember my own lieutenant telling us to keep quiet about this mindfuckery. Dunno why."

"Maybe I should believe them." Oliver said, cutting in like he always did, except he now seemed agitated. "That's fucked up. Seriously sarge, that has to be God damn bullshit."

"Watch it, Private Tennison." Smith's voice took a warning tone, a finger raised towards the offender, "The captain hears you and the lieutenant will make you swear to have washed that mouth of yours."

Oliver's face was tight as he stared at the sergeant, most likely wanting to tell him off but reining himself him. It was, after all, Smith just warning him, not necessarily scolding him. Jebediah gave him a look and a shake of his head, to which Oliver sighed in frustration, rubbing the back of his head as he said, "Yes, sir."

"Weapons platoon!" someone yelled, and the three men turned to find Lieutenant Bourne approaching them. "Gather up!"

At the man's words, the platoon sprang into action, thankfully fully defusing the situation between the staff sergeant and the private as they congregated on the space around the lieutenant.

"Alright people," he made a short loop to stare at the forty men that encircled him, "Unsurprisingly, we'll be behind the frontlines. Deep, in fact." At those words, a strange sort of feeling coursed through Jebediah, and he refused to let it be relief. "Now, I know you're all disappointed, so I've taken to remedy the situation to make up for it. At the basin's entrance, there are a number of hills that overlook our assigned section of the battlefield. We'll climb it, and set up there, where we'll get a vantage point of the Prismatic Spring."

Javier Woods held up a hand, and the lieutenant nodded to him. "Corporal."

"What're we supposed to do? Sit it out?" he asked, followed by a string of murmurs from the men.

"Wait for the enemy to come to us, corporal." Bourne said, "Our boys up front won't be able to hold ground, so we're covering them and then sneaking off ourselves. If you do your jobs right, you will be carrying much less when that order comes."

The murmurs got louder, with one speaking up. "So we're running away?"

"Unless you plan to stop multiple armored brigades by yourself, Private Flood," the lieutenant turned to the young soldier with a raised voice, "you will retreat when the order is given. In case you haven't noticed, we're going to bleed them dry before we properly face them. Now, is that clear?"

It seemed to have placated the men, as they gave 'yessirs' while others nodded, including Jebediah.

"Fine, dismissed, and we're on the move now, so move your asses or the captain will have my ass on a plate."

The platoon dispersed, gathering their weapons and gear, shouldering packs and strapping helmets on their heads. And just like they were trained to do, the platoon was ready to move at a moment's notice with several tens of kilograms on their backs and shoulders, following the rest of the young rifle company led by the old and experienced. Led by Captain Zheng, a slant-eyed man with a greying but trimmed beard, who was already shouting out the positioning of the platoons in their march.

"Weapons platoon, you're riding with me!"

And of course, the captain needed to keep an eye on them, or more specifically, Oliver and the twins. After all, Bravo Company was… _somewhat_ notorious for the misconduct of some of its members, and last year's Christmas celebration drove that fact home. It's no wonder to anyone inside the company as to why the captain liked to shout more than giving a respite in drills and exercises.

So it was with stern eyes drilled onto their back that Captain Zheng followed them towards the road and beside it, where they began their march north. To a battle that Jebediah tried not to think about, and failed.

* * *

General Peter van Doorn had flown in a myriad of helicopters in his life, from small and cramped to enormous and spacious, colored an olive drab, a tan brown, or completely black. Black Hawks, Super Stallions, Hinds, Hips, Ospreys, Merlins, Cougars… Whatever the design and purpose, a single constant would always plague their design, stemming from the propellers. They were loud as hell. But the alien technology always found a way to surprise you, or kill you, and the aircraft he was in was the embodiment of those two concepts.

In comparison to a train's horn, the ADVENT gunship was like a cat's purr, a gentle buzz that resonated throughout the ship that did not compete to be at the forefront of your attention. If it weren't for the inertia and the mild sense of having empty air below your feet, then it wouldn't feel as if you were flying at three and a half hundred kilometers per hour, speeding towards a soon-to-be battlefield… and a possible massacre.

Yellowstone: the last bastion of the United States of America. An enclave surrounded on all sides by the enemy, and yet managed to evade their attention for twenty years. It was an impressive feat, but luck would run out sooner than later, and it was with that that XCOM managed to save it from a swarm of the very thing Peter was riding on. But such act can't be done forever, and Yellowstone's stubbornness will one day be its downfall.

All Peter had to do, as XCOM's commander had said, was convince General Bannon to join and provide them with an experienced officer corps, so that they could better train and lead their troops against the aliens. Peter had been cocky the first time he had come to Yellowstone, telling himself that the general would accept the proposition as soon as it left his mouth, followed by drinking a bottle of their infamous spirits. Who would've thought that such a thing was a nigh impossible task?

 _"We're the Armed Forces of the United States of America, not some mercenary army that bends it will to someone else!"_ the general had claimed, followed by their dismissal and subsequent withdrawal of Yellowstone. But thankfully, it had not ended there. There were many officers and staff personnel in their West Thumb district that were sympathetic, even those that are close to Bannon. Through them, much was accomplished, including materials exchange and technical help to better their lives in that cold place, even if Bannon openly advocated on the Resistance Network for independent operations rather than working with XCOM.

That man couldn't see they were capable, but in time, maybe after this battle, they will all see.

Peter was brought out of his musings by the chime of his communicator, informing him of a transmission request. Strapped in as he was onto the seat, it was a chore to pry out the datapad from the satchel at his feet, but thankfully, Commander Bradford was saint when it came to patience as the chime never left when he managed to retrieve it. Peter saw the high priority message emblazoned on the screen, and without wanting to test the commander's sainthood, he tapped on the accept button.

Peter grunted at the sight of the commander, looking like he'd been flung from hell, only to arrive at shittier one. Bags under bloodshot eyes, a greying buzzcut, and a white stubble he hadn't bothered to shave. He looked like shit. Commander Bradford regarded him through the screen with a raised eyebrow, possibly by his grunt, and Peter only shook his head in exasperation.

"Jesus Christ, Bradford, I'm not your fucking wife, you know." Peter began without preamble, "I don't have to tell you to get some rack time before your sleep deprivation kills you."

Bradford looked at him with a frown, and at that moment, Peter looked over the commander's shoulder, and breathed a discreet sigh of relief when he saw that Bradford was in his stateroom in the _Avenger_. Despite Peter's qualms, a subordinate scolding his superior officer looked bad in the eyes of the men, and set a dangerous precedent. Especially after ADVENT's retaliations.

"You know I'm your commanding officer, general." Bradford finally responded, voice deep and gravely. "That is insubordination."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, "Sue me, Bradford." Peter snapped, but managed to catch the faintest sign of a smile at the corner of the commander's mouth. He tried to hide his own. "John, listen-"

"We've already discussed this with the others, Doorn." this time Bradford interrupted, still with his frown as he shook his head, "These duties are my own, and I have already noted your concern for my well being."

"Noted?" Peter wanted to laugh, "Try to heed it. You look like you're about to fall dead on the spot."

His commander blew the air out of his lungs, elbows resting on his worktable as he rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands. As much as Peter wanted to continue to berate him, he was more likely to give the poor man a stroke at the ripe age of forty-six than than actually help him. He should have expected this from Bradford. After all, the commander was a driven man, relentless, and most of all, a fighter. Bradford's grizzle and scar on his right cheek lent him a look of a long-seasoned officer, jaded and cynical as they come, but the commander had the motivation most of them seemed to lack, or have lost at their age and experience.

"Fine. What do you need, commander?" Peter conceded, and Bradford finally looked up from his faux insomnia.

"Yeah, right." Bradford sighed, straightening his back as he stared at the screen with tired eyes, "Is it really necessary that you be onsite during this offensive? I would prefer that you stay near the perimeter to coordinate any raiding of supply lines and flank harassment."

Peter snorted, "Can't keep me cooped up, Bradford. I have to take action and see just what in the hell Bannon got himself into. Gauge out his planned and proposed tactics to the defense to see if we can better the odds towards our favor."

Bradford gave him a look, prompting Peter to give him his best poker face. "Knowing you," the commander began, his tone low, "you'll rather sneak off to the frontlines and be with the grunts. Even the score, as you said."

"Is that so bad?" Peter asked with a mock innocence, while Bradford could only frown - his favorite expression now.

"I'll rather you not and keep you on the sidelines than get you killed, but I see that's out of my hands." he looked at something off the screen, looking pensive for a moment as he rested his chin on intertwined hands. "What about Ghost Company? They have been there the longest, and have been assisting in briefing their troops for what's coming. What did they say?"

"They have no cause to believe that the defenses will fail, unless ADVENT's armor breaks through the first lines of defense today." Doorn said, "However, Captain Crothers assured me that their anti-tank capabilities are up to par, and all but one axis of attack can be turned into narrow killing zones. Which is why most of them are concentrating on this one front, but even then, it's densely forested."

Peter let Bradford stew the information in his head, before the man suddenly nodded. "Right, and you're sure they're well supplied?"

A smile grew on Peter's face, remembering those bulky beauties and the sleek valkyries. "Oh, they are. A lot of ass kissing and ferrying supplies for those landing zones and the air strip, but now they have their fuel and ordnance. With what they had before, they can now stop armageddon at their gates."

A smirk broke on Bradford's face, though he looked away. Whatever fear was on Bradford's mind, Peter also shared. This was the largest mobilization of armored divisions anyone has ever seen on ADVENT's part, and William Thorne, their man inside the government, has confirmed it. However, it was also a gamble. ADVENT could've used this much force to attack the much smaller Havens that they know exist, but are instead heading into the largest one in North America, and Peter had an idea why. A symbol of the _old regimes_ , as the alien propaganda called them, and them existing undermined their image of complete superiority over Earth.

But to Bradford, it could also mean another thing. These people were his countrymen, Americans, and knowing all their stereotypes, they idolized their nation and ideals. After all, Bradford had been an American before he was XCOM, just like how Peter had been Dutch before he had become part of the United Nations, and then the resistance.

Bradford sighed, "I hope so, general, but I do have to make myself clear on one thing." he looked straight at Peter, or his screen's camera, and continued, "There's a noose tightening around Yellowstone, and once the aliens begin their offensive, we won't be able to extract you."

"I know the risks, commander." Peter reassured him, "But as _you_ said, we need this Haven for the insurgency in North America to survive. The _First Air Brigade_ is on standby and will be called upon when needed, but I won't give the signal if it's hopeless. These men need us, as much as we need them."

"My very own words, general." The commander said with a smile, though he looked about ready to drop, leaning back on his chair with a hand rubbing his bruised eyes as he took a deep breath, then spoke. "If Bannon keeps the aliens on their toes, then they might be forced to pull forces from both Cascadia and New Denver. Might give us a chance to make some trouble and spread chaos behind the enemy lines."

"Any help's appreciated, Commander. We might finally get the victory we need to pull this off."

"We might. Once you're there, keep me updated on the situation." Bradford seemed to look downwards, watching the screen, before he thought otherwise and looked directly at the camera, a scowl marring his face. "If there's a window of opportunity to hurt the enemy, take it. And make sure that ADVENT knows that we can bite them harder than they can."

Peter smirked, "We'll give'em hell, commander. Now get some fucking sleep. General Doorn, out."

He disconnected the call, the window with the image of the commander's face closing, and replaced by a spinning insignia of the ADVENT Coalition in the background of the user interface. An insignia he had grown to revolt. Although it seemed far fetched that they could overthrow ADVENT, he still had a dream where that flag was burned and shunned by the very people that had forgotten their forefathers' sacrifice to protect them from the alien menace.

But as of now, baby steps. Or a snail's, but progress was being made. Twenty years to rebuild their resistance while ADVENT ruled the world and built their super-cities. They had bid their time, and now it was time to see if it was all worth it.

* * *

The geyser basin of Yellowstone was the closest thing Jebediah would get to being in an alien world. As they walked west on a dirt path, and towards the hill they are supposed to climb, the land north of them was white, rocky, and barren. Rivers with banks colored a bright amber flowed through crevices in the rock, and steam bathed the landscape in a perpetual fog. And although it was noticeable warmer here, Yellowstone only transitioned from cold to chilly, even if the sun was already high in the sky.

But still, even in the cold temperature, the marching had managed to make him break a sweat. With more than fifty kilograms weighing down on his body, Jebediah kept up with the rest of the platoon, trudging and watching the almost alien landscape to distract himself as the others spoke, mindful of the captain tailing their column. His hands were beginning to cramp.

They at last found a line of fortifications that ran parallel to the dirt path and faced north, where the Grand Prismatic Spring steamed. It was the usual: sandbag nests, recessed fighting holes, and earthworks to soak up firepower, but then there was something odd about it. There was a whirring of an engine that became louder as they continued forward. Not like that of a truck or a car, as it was shrill instead of deep, but somehow it felt more powerful.

It sat between two pillboxes of sandbags, a defilade that receded below ground level. The rear of it was massive, the chassis a boxy shape while the turret's front was slanted, and Jebediah knew for sure that he wasn't seeing things. It was an Abrams tank, painted in green and hidden with camouflage netting, the whir of its engine audible dozens of meters away. A behemoth of a machine, it was big, loud, and mean looking.

Jebediah couldn't keep marvel out of his voice when he spoke, "Never thought I would see one of those alive." As they passed it, Jebediah felt the tremendous heat radiating off of its backside, and one of the crew members, the commander probably, sat on an open hatch and waved them on.

Jebediah waved back, and then Oliver spoke, "What, you seen them before?"

A smile formed on Jebediah's face when he turned to Oliver, almost incredulous. "Yeah, back at West Thumb near the gardens. You're telling me you never saw them?"

"Oh, don't get smug on me. Of course I saw them!" he defended himself, but already Jebediah knew he was lying. After all, Oliver never ever spent any time in his crop growing duties.

Jebediah could take a jab at it, and found himself to be very tempted by it. But, of course, his own temper would flare if Oliver got the upper hand, and Smith had told them not to do it in the presence of the lieutenant, and a certain captain at their back. And so Jebediah, quelling that small part of pettiness inside of him, changed the subject.

"Yeah, though I only counted thirty-six." Jebediah said, and Oliver's frown turned inquisitive. Jebediah forged on, "Could you imagine if we had an entire army of them? Hell, what if we were able to drive one?"

"Oh ho ho," Fergus, who was walking in front of them, chuckled. "No you don't. Those things are death traps, and have you ever heard what a cook-off is?" he paused, briefly and as if waiting for someone to speak up. No one did. "You know, magazine blows, you get burnt so bad that all that's left is a crispy you. Or even get fused to your seat! I heard the smell is terrible though."

Where Jebediah cringed and Oliver frowned, Fergus had spoken animatedly in front of them, oblivious maybe, and Jebediah doubted the man did not have a smile on his face as he spoke of burnt people. Often as he had talked about nauseating things, he had done it with that damned smile, which always made Jebediah doubt Fergus's sanity.

"And somehow he jinxes it." Oliver muttered, and Jebediah for once had to fully agree with him. The silence that the conversation had brought stretched as three companies broke off from the column and began to set themselves up on this defensive line. Captain Zheng, however, did not stop, and soon they found themselves leading the company in its march up a winding path on the hill that was adjacent to the defensive line. Somewhat steep, the path was only slightly worn by use, but a considerable amount of people have passed through here, as the weeds that had grown from decades of misuse had been trampled, and the dirt had been flattened.

Half-way on the climb, that theory was confirmed when out from the bushes beside the path, a sentry made himself known, stepping out and holding an armored hand out. The sight of him made Jebediah's eyes widen.

The man wore no armor made before the war, but one that almost looked liked it came from the Middle-Ages. A chest plate, pauldrons, greaves, and vambraces, strapped over a dark green undersuit. Black and grey, slanted and angular, it was an imposing sight that spoke of being puppet-made. And the only thing that placed the soldier on _their_ world was the regular ballistic helmet and the boxy rifle of the same make to the one Jebediah was carrying.

The company stopped in its tracks when Lieutenant Bourne at the head of the column did. This close, Jebediah could see the man clearly, eyeing the white stripe that ran from the collar of the chest plate to the groin, and there were similar stripes that ran down the soldier's arms. They were obviously painted over, as parts of them were flaked and worn, and an orange cloth was tied around the man's left arm. These were markings to distinguish them from the puppets, and Jebediah knew exactly where he had seen those before, and who wore them.

XCOM.

"We didn't expect you boys here!" the stranger called out, keeping his distance from the file of soldiers. For a moment, Jebediah thought the man had said 'hear' with a lack of an 'r', but then again, the man's overall accent was just off. _A foreigner?_ Jebediah asked himself.

"Yeah, and we expected more of you." the lieutenant countered as the captain walked down the column to reach them. "This is Captain Zheng of the Third Battalion, commander of Bravo Company."

The captain had sauntered forward from the file and reached the cautious sentry, some five meters ahead of them. Already were there murmurings along the company, and it was not long before Oliver elbowed Jebediah to get his attention.

"Now, ain't that badass?" he asked and nodded towards the XCOM soldier speaking with their captain. It really did look badass, now that Jebediah thought of it, but he wasn't ready to show it off to Oliver just yet.

"Badass?" Jebediah asked with half a smile, "You're saying that the Puppets are badass?"

"Hey, come on, Jeb, you gotta keep an open mind." Oliver smacked his shoulder, hard and sudden enough for a grunt of surprise to escape his lips, "You might as well drop that gun of yours then, since it's puppet-tech, right?"

"Human-made." Jebediah retorted, clutching his machine gun tighter before the file began to move once again. "And a whole deal better than yours."

Oliver laughed, "Oh, we're comparing dicks now? That's what we're doing?"

"If that's the case then, mine's definitely…" Jebediah's voice trailed off when he spotted something in the shrubbery alongside the path. In a moment, his eyes widened, now noticing the machine gun emplacement that had gone unnoticed by him. Behind it, a soldier was kneeling behind the tripod-mounted machine gun of the very same make as Jebediah's, waving and giving out greetings as they passed him.

"Definitely… what?" Oliver prompted, and Jebediah only gazed at him before looking straight at the gun barrels aiming near their way.

"Nothing. Forget about it."

Where the men of the platoon were giving out their greetings and salutes as they passed the man, Jebediah only gave a tight, forced smile, trying not to think about a simple squeeze of the trigger that would mow them all down like grass. It was something he had to push himself into, to not think about the mere possibility of getting killed. Years ago, he knew he would've scoffed at the idea, young and willing to fight for his home. A hail of bullets? Dive straight in! Have at it with the enemy!

Now, however, after last week's attack, it seemed as if there had been a switch on his mind, now facing the real possibility of being killed. It was a self-conscious shame that loomed over him ever since, and now whenever that feeling of impending doom returns, he's had to override it through will alone. After all, who will be the team's gunner? Oliver might, but it was _his_ responsibility, his job, his damned purpose.

Even thinking like this felt like letting the entire platoon down, so once again, like so many times before, he buried it. No one needed to see it, no one had use for it, and sure as hell no one wanted it.

The summit of the hill came as a great relief to his legs and mind, though the encampment had caught him off guard. Of course, he should've expected it, considering the sentries that now accompanied them, though Jebediah had thought of forward observers to communicate the battle with their high command. Not an entire company of black-armored troopers, closely resembling the puppets.

They were let into the perimeter without any fuss, and although some watched them, most of the soldiers were packing up - collapsing tents and filling their rucksacks with supplies. Just like in West Thumb, it was all professional, no dilly-dallying or complacency allowed, and when they had arrived at the center of the encampment, they watched as it was systematically dismantled around them.

The XCOM captain was an easy person to spot, heading towards them and wearing a set of armor that was unlike what they had seen before. Where the puppet armor was bulky, this one was slim, contouring around the woman's body from head to toe. The torso armor looked more like a vest now, and instead of wearing an undersuit like the rest, she wore regular fatigues underneath it. Even her helmet was not made of kevlar, but seemingly of the same material as her armor, with a visor the color of honey that shielded the eyes, and an angular crest that looked suspiciously like a camera.

The lower face was exposed, and she did not look pleased in any way as she approached their captain, but before they had a chance to watch the impending shitshow, Lieutenant Bourne stepped in front of them.

"Staff Sergeant Smith, we got dibs." the lieutenant said, and although he had the attention of the squad, the small tirade behind him caught the eyes of some, "Head over north and dig in. We're expecting the enemy in a few hours."

"What about these guys, sir?" Smith gestured to the departing black-clad soldiers, now leaving what used to be the perimeter and heading towards the path were they came.

"Don't know, don't care, and the captain's taking the brunt of it, so don't take his ears' sacrifice in vain, staff sergeant."

Oliver chuckled, the irony not lost on him it seemed.

The staff sergeant nodded then, and said a "Yes, sir!" before departing with them. Whatever they did, that captain didn't like it, and Jebediah racked inside his head for any reason when Oliver, and of course it had to be him, spoke.

"Looks like a match made in heaven, right Javier?" the man asked with a grin, peeking behind him. "I swear, we got a strong contender for the greatest hardass contest."

"Tennison, don't make me smack you." Javier Woods warned, "We're almost there, and then you can yapp _all_ you want."

Jebediah snorted, but he couldn't blame him, considering the enormous Javelin tube strapped on his back that looked like it could break any man's spine. Jebediah's own legs felt like jelly right now, and his hands cramped from the machine gun's weight. The cons of being the designated gun operators.

"Come on, man, how long have you been a corporal? Six months?" Oliver asked, "You used to talk so much during these trips. Now after the staff sergeant made you a corporal, you act like an ass."

"It's part of the job, Tennison." Javier said, and then fell silent as he walked on.

Oliver sighed, then turned to Jebediah, walking backwards. "Jeb, promise me one thing, man. Please."

Jebediah raised an eyebrow, "What is it dude?"

"If you become an NCO, don't be an asshole" Oliver turned back to the rest of the walk, and Jebediah could only stare at his back in confusion, the word 'What?' dying on his lips as he stopped. The squad was at the end of the hill, where there was a sharp drop, and beyond was the Grand Prismatic Spring.

It looked like an bleeding sore, with its orange-colored rim that seemed to seep into the chalk-white barren land with tendrils roaming in every direction. The water near the rim was cyan, while the center was a very deep blue, but all around it it was steaming along with another smaller spring further north. An alien world indeed, and that idea was reinforced by the fact that virtually no one lived here.

The Firehole River curved along with the road, now running perpendicular to them for a few hundred meters. The cause of this was the Midway Bluff, a cliff that rose sharply on this side but wasn't high enough to cover what was beyond it. And everywhere else that wasn't the wasteland around the immediate vicinity of the spring were woods and creeks, with only some odd clearings of green meadows. Infantry would rule this battle.

When Jebediah arrived to his squad, the staff sergeant was pointing an invisible line around the treeline, "-hold your fire until told otherwise. I'm sure you didn't forget your spades this time?"

"No sir." Thomas proudly declared, and both the twins and the staff sergeant turned to Jebediah and Oliver as they arrived. "Got yours, Jeb?"

Like he always did after leaving the barracks, Jebediah reached behind him to grope, and felt the shafts of his spade and pick. "Yup." he said, smiling, and trying to be discreet with the relief that had spread through him. Not again would he dig with his hands and nails.

"Well then," the staff sergeant began, motioning to the ground around them, "dig your holes and break your backs. We'll be here for a while."

And just like that, with swallowed groans and dropping of packs, they began a new episode of playing mole-rat.


	2. Of Valkyries and Behemoths

When one joins the military, he signs up for up to five years of hardship in the lands of Yellowstone. Training, drilling, marching, digging, freezing, all to keep themselves alive and prepare for the inevitable coming of the Puppets. Whenever they were out in the woods for an exercise, they have had to carry spades and picks to dig defensive positions, or graves as others called them, every single time they stopped for further instructions or to sleep after a day's grueling march.

" _Dig the whole you want to die in."_ Lieutenant Bourne had said back then, and they would have laughed about it if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't a suggestion but an order. And for two years of military service did Jebediah live the life a soldier, just like his father, and although there were ups and down, most of them downs, it gave you the experience and a set of skills that become invaluable out here. One of them, of course, was the art of digging.

Their foxhole facing north was their little hole in the ground, big enough for four people, and low enough to provide effective cover. It provided a field of view that spanned the spring, the river, the road, the dirt path with its defensive line below them, and the bluff, with just a five hundred meter distance between the latter point. The remaining dirt was used to reinforce their breastwork, thick enough to definitely soak up any projectile that might come their way, and Oliver had unwrapped a bundle of green camouflage netting to create a canopy and conceal their position.

To top it all off and celebrate their success, they were doing their favorite activity to blow off some steam. Nothing.

Because they were supposed to be on the lookout for the enemy, even though they were more than five kilometers from the supposed front line, they had to lie and wait here in the dirt. But it wasn't that bad, considering the other times they have had to wait for hours, maybe even half a day with nothing to show for it. Sometimes in the warm sun, others in the middle of a rainstorm, but the worst ones were the winters.

Since Yellowstone was apparently way above the sea level, it was colder here than the rest of the country. Last winter had been an exceptionally bad one, where they were forced to winter in the barracks for months, but at _the leas_ t they had something to do there. Whenever they weren't exercising or taking part in one of the lieutenant colonel's drills, they were sitting around, playing cards, sparring with punches and wooden knives, or, something that Jebediah rather enjoyed, tending to the military's own selection of crops in West Thumb's greenhouses.

While here? Anything would have been better than waiting in the dirt, maybe even dig another hole, but at the least the others seemed to have a better time. From here Jebediah could hear the twins singing the classic cautionary tale, _Skinny-Dipping in the Spring,_ in their own little foxhole, while the staff sergeant was discussing something with Corporal Woods. God knows what Fergus was up to, and Alicia Matthews was definitely still with Woods. Those two, despite the fact that Javier was now a non-commissioned officer, were still shacking up and keeping a lid on it on the captain.

Meanwhile, Oliver sat back at the breastwork, without his helmet and revealing his close cropped dark hair, talking about his misadventure in dealing with a certain Misses Brown with a little petty revenge that involved 'cream' filling a pastry. Jebediah, also without his helmet, was driven to tears with laughter, almost making him forget to what they were supposed to do, and the men that had left so suddenly two hours prior.

Whatever those soldiers had left for, it had to have been for a good reason. That captain had been clearly disgruntled by their arrival, and had taken it out on Captain Zheng. Why? It was anyone's guess. Even the staff sergeant, when he visited their hidey hole, didn't know why, and the lieutenant was busy somewhere else with the platoon to provide any worthwhile explanation.

It still left a company of heavily armed and armored troopers out there, doing… _something._ XCOM were always a little mysterious to them, from their encrypted radio tower in West Thumb to their common goal of liberating Earth. Anyone that had looked at their gear knew that it was advanced, and based off what the puppets used. Gauss weaponry, radio frequencies that no one can pick up on, floating drones, and now this plated armor. Not puppet-made, but Human-made.

For a resistance group, this organization was very well organized, even acting like a proper military. The few times Jebediah had seen them in West Thumb, it was to visit General Bannon, and their arrival and presence were always under their watch and talked about. Even XCOM's contributions, such as food, medicine, and other badly-needed supplies, were noted by the people over in the Grant Village district, and there had been talk about a shipment of aircraft being assembled on a cordoned-off site in the north of West Thumb. But what was perhaps the most significant effort they have done in the past few years was the radio tower, towering not some five meters into the air and capable of receiving and transmitting messages to all the surviving Havens around the world. It was a comforting thought, to know that there were many people out there like them, unwilling to bow down to the puppet government and instead fight the aliens that had conquered their home.

But it did bring up some questions, something that he wanted to indulge with Oliver now that he managed to shut up for more than five seconds. "You know, Oliver," Jebediah began, leaning into the tripod-mounted machine gun, "when you talked about that girl, what was it?" he snapped his fingers, trying to recall. "Carly? No Caroline. You said you had to _win_ her over with a pretty gift and some sweet words."

Oliver raised an eyebrow, "Well, yeah, she was that shallow..." he seemed to consider the Jebediah for a second, before a smile formed on his face. "Oh ho ho, you're thinking up on my offer Jeb? Moira-"

"It's not about that!" Jebediah snapped, feeling his face heat up, and forced himself to continue. "It's just… Do you think XCOM is trying to win Yellowstone over? Like, with technicians and supplies? First with that weird radio tower, and then with weapons and ammo." Jebediah patted his machine gun, "But I heard that General Bannon wasn't having any of it with them."

Oliver pursed his lips, almost pouting and seemingly disappointed in where Jebediah took the conversation into. "Well, maybe the general is playing hard to get. Which is a shame really, the stuff the spooks have look solid."

Jebediah snorted, "What? That's all you can think of? Their shit and gear?"

"I'm just saying," Oliver held his hands up defensively, "these guys are something else. You don't see us attacking and bombing puppets in their own cities all over the world. These guys are actually taking the fight to them, and what are we doing? Sitting on our asses, growing plants, killing pigs, and waiting for Bannon to grow some fucking balls! It's fucking embarrassing."

Jebediah regarded Oliver for a moment after he finished his tirade, knowing for a fact in what he had just said had rung in him. This was not the first time he had heard of this opinion, as there were many soldiers, even old officers, that thought the same as Oliver did. And it all stemmed from the general's decision, made twenty years ago that defined their very own existence in this region of America.

"You want to make a difference:" Jebediah stated, and Oliver beamed.

"Who the hell doesn't? You?" he asked with laughter in his voice, and Jebediah frowned at the slight indignation. He forced himself not to tell him off when Oliver continued. "We should be out there, Jeb. Not cooped up in here to freeze in frigid rainstorms and even worse winters. I mean, some place south sounds nice, don't you think? Somewhere warm, with an actual beach…"

"Oliver." Jebediah interrupted, "are you forgetting something?"

Oliver looked puzzled for a moment, before his eyes widened. "Oh, right. Still stuck here."

There was a whistle, somewhere outside their hole in the ground. "We got incoming! Weapons cold, everyone!" Lieutenant Bourne shouted, and a chill went through Jebediah's spine.

As quickly as that notice had been, they both scrambled for their helmets, strapping them on and huddling behind the breastwork, and there, on the skies above the basin, were distant dots in the air. There seemed to be a dozen of them, a squadron of black shapes coming from the north, and Jebediah blew the air out of his lungs in an attempt to calm himself. They were gunships.

"Think they're friendly?" Oliver asked, and Jebediah had to consider it for a moment, but discarded that idea. XCOM has been known to have acquired droves of Puppet gunships from raided airfields and supply trains, and in Yellowstone's case, had witnessed them ferry in supplies and sometimes delegations in West Thumb. As much as Jebediah hoped for friendly gunships to help them in the battle, he had to stay within reason.

"No, these ones are coming from the north." Jebediah said, his voice surprisingly steady to him, "XCOM always comes from the south or west. So, yeah, these are fucking puppets."

They had all seen the footage of the attacked Havens, how black ships came from the skies to wreak havoc and death on innocents. It had been mandatory for everyone in West Thumb to watch those videos, to see how they could be countered and beaten if they ever attacked their home. And it culminated on last week's attack.

It had happened during the night, and it had come so sudden that Jebediah had woken up to the sound of West Thumb's alarm klaxons. Then explosions. In that moment, after the lieutenant told them of attacking gunships, Jebediah had thought that they were being strafed from above, launching missiles and dropping bombs. But the truth was thankfully far from it, when the reports of explosions were from the air, as the missile defense system set up around Yellowstone destroyed every single ship before they could come within range. Another wooing gift from XCOM.

Oliver was crouched to Jebediah's right, binoculars in hand and seeing through them as Jebediah gripped the machine gun in a white-knuckle grip, watching the dots turn into shapes. Black and bulky, they were fast and deadly, and Jebediah had learned from an ex-helicopter pilot that these gunships would've put to shame any attack helicopter the military used twenty years ago with their mobility, but it did bring some questions. They were passing over thousands of soldiers in the basin and dozens of concealed armored fighting vehicles, something that would have stood out sorely in what the ex-pilot had called 'thermal imaging'.

But they weren't engaging. They were quite literally under their noses and the gunships seemed completely oblivious to the army below them. Jamming? Jebediah was not sure they had any equipment meant to shield them from infrared, and so his thoughts strayed to XCOM. Maybe they were responsible for this? Was the enemy actually being incompetent? Couldn't be. Too many questions, and zero answers.

Jebediah heard Oliver's low whistle, "Those things are packin' heat. Counting eight missiles on each wing, and a fuckhuge gun on their noses."

"Not our fight." Jebediah mumbled, noting that maybe these gunships would pass right above them. Three kilometers out, they were approaching awfully fast. "If it does engage us, duck and cover. No sense in fighting back against those."

There was a sound of sizzling far in the distance, towards the northeast, and Jebediah briefly saw plumes and trails of white smoke rising from the woods beyond and to the right of the cliff. More followed, west, and he even heard south of them, and the gunships' chevron formation broke as they seemed to disperse in random directions.

The explosions were small, fireballs that lasted only a fraction of a second and were quickly replaced by smoke and shrapnel. Happening kilometers away, Jebediah saw some fall, with the pops of these explosions reaching them several seconds later. One dot was struck and seemed to turn into another sun for a full second, and then just… nothing.

Oliver chuckled, "Fuckin' Fourth of July." he grinned as the squadron was practically shattered, and Jebediah could not help but smile. "Whaddaya think, Jeb?" Oliver then asked, "Like the ones the staff sergeant told us about?"

"Maybe..." Jebediah drawled on, seeing debris and hunks of metal crash into the ground on the far off distance. There were now fewer gunships, trying to circle and fly low. "And if it isn't, then I guess this is as close as we'll get."

The missiles were deadly and accurate, striking down each gunship like a swat to a fly and with enough oomph to give Jebediah goosebumps whenever the sound of the explosions reached them. It was the same outcome as last week, the total obliteration of the enemy air force without giving them a chance to fight back, and it was beautiful. The men outside their foxhole were cheering, whistles and shouts of joy even from afar and down below the hill, where the rest of the battalion was stationed in a protective perimeter.

For what seemed like ten minutes they watched the pillars of smoke rise into the air, thin and almost fleeting, until pops and bangs suddenly reached them like a wave. At first, they seemed unimportant. Just crackles with some powerful pops here and there, and Jebediah was content to lean into the breastwork to stare at the landscape, but the sight of distant flashes revealed him the truth. A glance at Oliver, the man's usually smug face now worried, lent credibility to the rising fear in Jebediah's gut, and he gave a shuddering sigh.

The puppets were here.

"Oliver," Jebediah began, "see if you can get anything."

As Oliver retrieved his binoculars, there were distant and deep thumps from the south, possibly their howitzers firing to support their troops in the north. Only five kilometers away…

"Can't see shit." Oliver reported as he looked through the binoculars, "I'm seeing some explosions and tracers, but that's it. Trees are hiding the show."

Jebediah shook his head, and if he ever let go of his machine gun, then he would start to pace their hole. Vehicles were running up and down the road, armed Humvees followed by longer ones with the red cross emblazoned on their tarp-covered backs, and the odd Bradley infantry fighting vehicle every now and then, but it seemed more of them were coming over to them than heading out. The explosions got closer, and louder. _Four kilometers… No, less than that._ Jebediah thought.

It was coming closer, and the lieutenant's words came back to reminds him that this was planned. They were losing ground because they can't hold them, and so they were retreating while bleeding the enemy dry. All part of the strategy, and Jebediah had to convince himself that this was the way they could save their home. They weren't running away, and yet it felt well damned like it.

More gunfire roared throughout the landscape, more distinguishable now. Staccatos of small arms and autocannons or chainguns, and the louder bangs of explosions from tank fire and other explosives. There was more smoke billowing from the forests, and sudden puffs of white smoke extended tendrils towards the ground in some areas, the white phosphorus burning through the trees and causing small forest fires that maybe would engulf the entire basin if left unchecked. But that seemed to the the problem of the puppets now, as streams of scarred vehicles drove through the road towards them and soldiers accompanied them, sitting on their tops or jogging beside them.

This entire advance had taken something close to two hours. Two hours of held breaths and drumming hearts, watching explosions and hearing the stuttering of weaponry, hoping that their men downrange were giving the puppets hell. _Didn't they conquer the world?_ The doubts crept in. _What's are a bunch of old men and some teenagers going to do against them?_ It almost felt as if his mind wanted to talk shit about him and Yellowstone, and Jebediah laid more dirt on it to bury it.

A shadow obscured their light on their foxhole. "We all good here?" Staff Sergeant Smith asked, and Jebediah turned to find his silhouette through the holes of the web netting.

"Managing." Jebediah answered, "How close are they?"

"Really fucking close. Expect contact in the next hour." his form seemed to move to leave, but hesitated, "You do remember your standing orders, right?"

Where Jebediah faltered, it was Oliver that came to save the day. "Don't shoot the aliens when we see'em?" he said, still at his post.

"Don't even pull the trigger until told otherwise." Smith said, and probably was doing his signature hands on his hips pose, but was obscured by the netting. "You guys are our fists, so don't fuck it up." he turned and left them.

Jebediah snorted, turning back to the smoke and fire in the basin while mumbling, "' _So don't fuck it up.'_ Can you believe him?He's telling us we need a license to shoot now?"

"Well, it is alien season now, Jebby." Oliver said, still staring through the binoculars, always casual. "We gotta keep the that xeno population in check."

"Stop me if I overdo my quota then-" he was interrupted by a loud explosion, far too near than before. Looking over the chalken wasteland beside the enormous thermal pool, he saw as smoke cleared from a brand new crater in the ground. "Jesus, was that us?"

His question went unanswered, as Oliver kept looking through the binoculars. "They're coming closer…" he said, still scanning as the battle intensified. _Three kilometers now?_ Jebediah thought, _This is way too fast…_

"Oh, oh shit I see'em!" Oliver said, mouth agape as he still looked through his binoculars. "On that clearing two kilometers to the northwest. They got fucking walkers!"

"Show me," Jebediah ordered, and Oliver handed him the binoculars. He swallowed as he looked through them, sweeping the landscape to find the clearing Oliver had mentioned, and it wasn't hard to see them. They were tall, looking more like a box with legs than a war machine as they trudged through the marshes and kept firing some chaingun from their bottoms. At that moment, he saw as one of its legs was blown off, while another's 'head' outright exploded, falling and splashing on the thin water cover of the swampy meadow. Black armored troopers marched beside the wreckages, equally colored rifles spewing out red tracers as they continued to advance.

"God damn." Jebediah breathed out, seeing how they kept advancing despite the fact that many were being shot down for standing out in the open like idiots, but it looked like their numbers and firepower made up for it. "What the fuck... this is insane."

"What are you seeing?" Oliver asked, and Jebediah tried to at least give an estimate of what he was witnessing. Countless troopers marching, supported by white-armored automatons that towered over them, and in their grips, what looked like a cannon that spat large red bolts.

"In that clearing?" Jebediah said, "A thousand alone. We're mowing them down but they just keep coming."

In another clearing that he could see, the same story, except there were Bradleys and Humvees backing up as they engaged the enemy with their heavy weaponry. There were no enemy vehicles that he could see in those clearings, but the heavy weaponry those robots held by the hand were enough to eviscerate a Humvee and suppress friendly positions, while the puppets followed each unit from behind. Advancing relentlessly.

Closer and closer, Jebediah's heart hammered in his chest. The entrenched men were putting up a solid defense, destroying rows of robots and the columns of soldiers behind them. The puppets should have broken there surely, but it went on and on as the enemy fire intensified. Suddenly, their vehicles began to move forward, causing Jebediah to straighten up in hope. A misplaced hope however, as the IFVs and tanks began to deploy their smoke screens, while the infantry began to pull out.

"They're falling back." Jebediah announced, trying to contain the disbelief in his voice. Oliver only cursed.

His own breaths came uneven, watching as the vehicles started to make their retreat, and focusing on a sole lagging Abrams tank. It was just like the one at the foot of the hill, shaded with hues of dark green and brown, but this one was under heavy fire and exposed. A man, the commander perhaps, was poking out of one of the hatches, shooting the tank's heavy machine gun when something exploded at the turret's side. As suddenly as it happened, fire blew straight up from the tank's top, like some sort of burning geiser that seemed to reach up to the tree tops. As much as it awesome to see, it also horrified him, and he strained to see where the commander was as the pseudo-geiser continued to roar.

Before he could think of the worst however, the tank kept going, aiming and shooting its coaxial machine gun as it reversed when everyone inside should have been dead. "Come on!" he muttered, and had his hopes dashed when an impact at the tank's front made it shudder to a stop. A moment later, the hatches popped open, and three miraculously unscathed men escaped the doomed tank, running south towards the treeline. His vision, no, hands trembled as he tried to will them on to safety, but they were too far left behind. Jebediah could only watch as each man just fell limp on the ground one after another.

Jebediah tightly shut his eyes and shook his head, before roughly setting the binoculars down onto the breastwork. He brought the palm of his hands to run against his eyes, taking deep breaths to reduce the sudden nausea. He told himself it was anger at what he saw, and although he was a terrible liar, he repeated it inside his head like a mantra. This was the fate that awaited them, for his friends, his family, everyone. To lose here would spell death for them all.

"Hey, you alright?" Jebediah heard Oliver ask, and he shook his head.

"This is fucking sick." Jebediah muttered, leaving the binoculars on the breastwork for Oliver to pick up as he stepped back from his weapon to look at the smoke-filled landscape. The fires were raging now, and it would not be long before the enemy arrived. "Guess no more nights of freezing our nuts off for nothing, right?"

Oliver gave him a questioning look from his viewing, "Yeah, guess so. Ready to get our hazard pay."

Jebediah huffed, "We don't even get paid."

Oliver did not respond to that, looking over the binoculars at the battle unfolding before them. Artillery and mortars, getting closer. _Two kilometers away now._ He stepped forward to the machine gun when there came shouts at the back, followed by the shout of "Clear backblast!" and some seconds later, the bang, whoosh and whine of the launch of a Javelin guided missile. It was almost impossible to see, as it did not leave a discernible smoke trail like the surface-to-air missiles had, and with the continuous explosions in the distance, it was hard to tell if the missile had struck a target.

That was until there came a cheer, and Oliver spoke, "At least they're getting some."

"All in due time." Jebediah said, hands gripping tightly on the handles of the machine gun, seeing how streams of men and convoys of vehicles retreated from the battle and headed south on the road. _Retreating, not fleeing._ He told himself again. _How many puppets are they sending? Do we have enough ammo? Do we have a chance? Do_ _ **I**_ _have a chance?_

All meaningless questions now, and like the good soldier one drills you to be, he waited.

* * *

The bunker system that was Yellowstone's command center was shallow, and built only with logs and planks that let the humidity of the earth into the air. Plastic piping ran along the edges of the roofs, wires protruding to connect to the lamps that provided light in the dank tunnels. And here and there, there would be a simple ventilation system that consisted of a box fan strapped onto an exhaust or intake. Back in the day, General Peter van Doorn could have found tunnels like these all around the Middle East, made by hand, a lack of resources, and an instilled fear of the skies. They were usually shoddily built though, and prone to collapse at the faint whisper of an air or artillery strike.

But the tunnels he was coursing through weren't built by amateurs or teens playing soldiers. The construction was solid and well maintained, enough that he didn't fear that it would fall on top of his head. Skilled engineers must have planned and made a reality of this bunker system, and outside the super-cities and other ADVENT-occupied territories, that was a valuable rarity. But General Bannon's pride had of course been his greatest challenge.

Even the thought of seeing the general made Peter grimace as he made his way deeper into the bunker, Captain Reisenfeld, his escort for the evening, a step behind him. General Bannon was distrustful of XCOM, only allowing them to help in delivering much needed supplies to the Haven and later on, the radio tower for the Resistance Network. Even after years of working with them, the man only gave centimeters when the other Havens completely folded over to them, a difficulty that had taken even the Commander by surprise. It was the reason why they began to invest in the Haven, bringing new weapons to supplant the old, fixing their vehicles and bringing fuel for them, upgrading the targeting and guidance systems of their anti-air missiles to strike ADVENT's gunships, and even lending their most experienced troops to train and advise their men. All to gain hearts and minds with them.

Operation Avenger should've been the tipping point to convince the General to join them, to see them as the hard sons of bitches that would fight tooth and nail to get rid of ADVENT and their alien overlords, but the retaliations stopped that dead in its tracks. Peter had been there when their representative sent his report to the Commander, explaining how the General was beyond furious, and seeking support to cut all ties with XCOM. Of course, that was one of the many messages from the Havens around the world that also thought the same. Looking back on it, that entire shitshow had been a nightmare from start to finish. The civilian casualties, the lost Haven frequencies, and the threats of a fucking coup against the Commander himself.

And then, as if the damned universe aligned itself to give them a second chance, ADVENT had decided to attack Yellowstone, the strongest proponent in leaving XCOM. With the advanced warning system Chief Engineer Lily Shen had created, along with her yet-unproven missile guidance system, the entire strike force had been obliterated, with footage of it transmitted throughout the entire Resistance Network. If General Bannon had ever seen a chance to proclaim Yellowstone's capabilities in managing their own defense, it had been overshadowed by XCOM's propaganda department, and an interview with a reluctant and nervous Lily talking about the tech that helped the defense. They narrowly won them all back, the Havens, the people, the soldiers, their trust.

But not General Bannon's.

From outside the wooden door to the operations room, he could already hear the cacophony that came with a heated operation. There were a duo of soldiers stationed beside the entrance, fully armored in vests and helmets made of ceramics and kevlar, and in their hands were the old-fashioned _M-4_ carbines. Just like Peter, they were nearing their middle age, one clearly in his forties while the other seemed to be pushing his fifties, but they carried their age with chins held high as they stared at them. The old guard, Peter supposed, and he knew what they were seeing. Their black magplate armor and the captain's sidearm, as if they were expecting conflict, and they were right, though for the wrong reasons. Peter always carried his armor around for two reasons, to show off to the locals, of course, and to follow his personal motto - always expect a fight.

Peter nodded to them, waiting for a second or two before the older one with the salted, bushy moustache turned, opened the door, and slipped inside. The wait was casual, but quiet between them, the only sound coming from the multitude of voices ahead. The remaining guard seemed nonchalant, but Peter saw his eyes straying to his bodyguard's hips, where his handgun lay. Said eyes, looked up, catching his own, before looking straight ahead. Peter huffed in mirth. _Always expect a fight._ He thought, _Thought we'll be popping moonshine by now._

The man with the moustache returned, nodded to them, and stepped aside to let them in. The operations room was a small one, with a number of officers in grey digital fatigues discussing over a table at the end of it. Radio operators were relaying messages on the side, some giving status updates that often translated to _We're holding but getting asses handed back to us._

He approached the general and his staff, now noticing that for once none of them stopped doing their job just to stare and whisper. A good change of pace, he decided, though they now did because they finally realized what is at stake. General James Bannon was on the other side of the table, surrounded by officers as they poured over a paper map of Yellowstone. It was a topographical one, with a plastic sheet over it that contained drawings of their defensive lines and circles that Peter supposed denoted minefields. Beautifully carved wooden soldiers seemed to represent their own forces, spread out over Yellowstone's perimeter and on the drawn lines. Already the defenses furthest outward were crossed in red.

"General Bannon." he called, and the man in question lifted his head to look at him. He seemed to be in his sixties, maybe even early seventies, with a bald head and a white stubble on his craggy face. The look he gave to Peter was not grandfatherly though, a deep scowl crossing his brows as his eyes looked upwards to him.

"Is there something you need? Or are you here to tell me that your forces were delayed?" he asked, and already Peter had to force a smile to hide the fact that his teeth were clenching. The man had been acting like an ass ever since Peter had arrived so long ago, cranky, stubborn, and, worst of all, patriotic to a dead nation.

"They will be on time." Peter assured him, trying to keep his voice neutral. It wasn't the fact that the general was half-right, but rather, that he already assumed that it would happen. "But I'm afraid the enemy will be able to mount an offensive before they can arrive. My scouts have reported an armored division coming to reinforce the enemy in the north, and their chatter has confirmed their intentions." _My men are next door, twiddling their thumbs and doing fuck-all. Hidden and waiting to strike the enemy while they pummel you to pieces, just because you wouldn't let us in days before._ He didn't say, instead deciding to raise his shin.

"It's through the Prismatic Spring, ain't it?" Bannon said, a smug smile creeping onto his lips. "That place has always been a pain the ass to handle - all plains and forests, perfect for an armor rush. But we have a remedy for that."

"I doubt that." Peter said, seeing how quickly the man's face contorted to a murderous glare. "Unless you plan to use the planes now, the defenses there will fail."

"And you suppose this will happen… how?" the general said, as one of the officers, one he hadn't known before, stepped forward.

"Major General Reed has seen to the defense of the northeast section with an armored division. We have placed our trust in him to hold the line and stop the enemy at all costs." he said, and Peter raised an eyebrow at him. He was the youngest of the group, only showing strands of grey here and there, and definitely not one with XCOM.

"Well then, sorry to tell you, but whatever old, rusty tanks he has, it isn't gonna cut it. I have a battle-hardened company and some officers working with your boys there, and with the intel we've passed over to them, they're sure that the front will fall apart." Peter told him, turning to the ever-scowling general. "My forces can stop them. Stop this offensive instead of halting it for just a few hours."

"Then why are you here, General Doorn?" he said as he straightened his back to his full height, "Why do you want throw away the only pilots we have to the Puppets?"

"Because, general." he paused, finally reaching where he needed to be. "ADVENT has moved in anti-air units in the area. Short-range, meant to strike gunships like ours that can turn the tide of the fight in that sector. They're well guarded and behind enemy lines in the north, where most of the attacking force is concentrated."

"You have your men," Bannon persisted, "can't you do some of your infamous infiltration ops?"

"As I said, they're deeply behind enemy lines." Peter said exasperatedly. "However, we do have their location and as of now, a laser tag." He took a step forward. "General, this is the chance to hurt ADVENT the most. If we play our cards right, we'll take out a sizable chunk of their forces in North America. But to do that, I need your help."

The man stood quiet, looking at the map as he scratched at the stubble on his chin. "My gut's telling me not to." he looked at Peter, "Tell me, general. Do the Puppets have any interceptors on standby to make a mockery of the US air force again?"

"They don't even know you have supersonic aircraft. As I said before, their missiles are short-ranged, meant to strike _our_ gunships that we captured. We take those out, and we will rain fire down on them."

Surprisingly, the man seemed to be considering it, a skepticism replacing the anger. He stared down at the map momentarily, then brought a hand to the Prismatic Spring, a red X crossing over it and in numerous other places in its vicinity. "I don't like to entertain the idea that you're onto something, general. " he said, lifting his eyes back to Peter's. "But maybe… I haven't told you our plan."

Peter raised an eyebrow, confused for a moment before remembering the general's 'remedy'. "I'm all ears then."

"Considering the force we're facing, we weren't counting on your dear Commander sending any assistance whatsoever. Leaving us to die like he did to a million other people." the general said, his voice full of scorn. "So I've had an engineering brigade use any explosives we've had and procured from you to rig the thermal pools to blow. If our local hobby-geologist is right, then it will cause some minor earthquakes and cause the pools themselves to discharge. Afterwards, a swift offensive with our 'rusty' armored vehicles will strike at their disorganized force, and hopefully taking out a sizable portion of their ground troops."

Peter's eyes widened, then brought his surprise under control. "You haven't... consulted us on that plan, general." he said with a cocked head. For all of his misgivings against the man, the plan sounded crazy enough that Peter _liked_ it. "But it might be what we need to fully stop their advance if we combine our forces to carry out this offensive. That is, if you launch your jets."

The general stayed silent for a moment, and one of the officers stepped forward. "Lancer Squadron was to deploy in a night-op to strike enemy positions if we repulsed them." he said, and Peter remembered who he was, Colonel Potley, the man responsible for the air force program in Yellowstone... and a collaborator for XCOM. "General Bannon, they can be in the air in ten - fifteen tops to give XCOM their window of opportunity. I say we give it a go."

Bannon snorted, looking at Peter with a face of uncertainty, before turning to Potley. "Fine, I'll allow it. Colonel, I want them in and out of there as quickly as possible. If they miss, then tell them to head back home." he said, then looked back at Peter. "When can we expect this offensive?"

"In an hour or so." Peter responded, trying not to smile at the small victory. "We'll coordinate with the colonel in getting the perfect timing with this plan of yours."

"Good." he said, before giving an exasperated sigh. "General, for the record, this doesn't mean anything."

Peter wanted to laugh, but he just bit the inside of his cheek. "I know it doesn't. But the Commander has humanity's best interest at heart, and to me, is the only one crazy enough to actually want to actually take the fight to the alien threat."

To his chagrin, Bannon did laugh. "If XCOM's actions don't kill us all first, then maybe I'll believe it."

* * *

For a moment, he almost wanted to kill his dog. The barking had awoken him, and by the look of the bright curtains, it was still daytime, and way before his night-op was scheduled to launch. A series of knocks came from the door, now stronger and more urgent than Skippy's barks, and Bill Herrington groaned, forcing himself to stand from the bed. Already did he have trouble trying to fix his sleep cycle, and today it was even more difficult as the battle had made him sick with worry for Vance. And now? Someone thought it would be funny to poke around and wake him.

Groggy, he rubbed his face as he crossed the small cabin and towards the front door, where Skippy was jumping and barking without cease. Whoever it was, he was going to kill them for not reading the _DO NOT DISTURB DURING DAYLIGHT_ sign posted at the door. Swinging it open, Bill hoped the baggy eyes that were surely there and his own disheveled appearance to be enough to scare children away, but he was only met by a woman in uniform. Her eyes widened, fist held up in what must have been another attempt at knocking, then brought down instantly as she composed herself.

"Sir, Colonel Potley has ordered the immediate launch of your squadron." she spoke quickly, her rigid posture and tilted chin enough to tell him that she was a draftee. Though her uniform's camouflage was grey, it seemed to have been sun-bleached by the years "I'm to take you there."

 _Of-fucking-course._ Bill thought, closing his eyes and lying his head against the wooden door, and banged it once with a groan. _Couldn't you wait for a few more hours?_ He forced his heavy eyelids up to stare at the woman, no, girl, and spoke.

"Stay right here, and don't you dare take a step on the garden." he closed the door on her, and quickly made his way towards a wardrobe. Yanking it open, he opened the false-panel on the underside and extracted his old, grey flight suit and helmet, thankful that the moths had not eaten the fabric to scraps. Had it been any other time, he would have relished this moment, filled with nostalgia and giddy to fly again. Now, his eyes felt like his worst enemy, his body seemed to weight down on him, and his sleep-addled mind had just realized that he had all but been rude to the girl.

When he dressed and was finished tying up his boots on the bed, he exhaled, and against his body's natural instinct to lay back down and feel the comfort of the thin foam cot, he stood, and went for the door with his helmet at his hip. Saying a goodbye to Skippy, he let boy out of the cabin as he exited, finding the girl, soldier, whatever, exactly where he found her before at the foot of the entrance. She yelped as Skippy began to do his own thing, sprinting past her and away into the gravel road, to go where he liked to do his business maybe, or got the scent of a bitch in heat. It didn't matter, anything would be better than being stuck inside a cold cabin if he and Vance did not manage to make it through this alive.

"I'm sorry about my manners before," he said, locking the door and turning to her with a forced smile, "happens when things go ahead of schedule, eh?"

"Don't worry... sir." she said, looking to where the dog had run off to before turning to him. "I've said worse things to my mother whenever she woke me up to do the chores." she smiled to drive the point home, and although Bill appreciated her attempt to lighten their exchange, he still felt guilty about his earlier snap.

"Right." Bill nodded towards the parked quad bike in front of his vegetable garden. "Off we go then?"

She straightened up, "Oh, yes. We have to go now, the colonel is waiting… sir." She led him towards it, an old four-wheeled bike, though well maintained and not as roughed up as others he had seen around the district. Bill mounted at the backseat, making sure to place his flying helmet between him and the girl, and soon they were away from the cabins, lodges and greenhouses of the Grant Village district.

On their way north and through their chatter, Bill managed to get the girl's name, Stacey Hudson. A recent draftee with only a couple months of training, and at the age of sixteen. _She should be in school._ Came the thought, but buried it. He wasn't surprised to see teenagers in the militia now, considering the battle that raged all around the park as of now. Here, though, it was all quiet under the shadow of the web canopies. The sole road made of broken asphalt and the pathways made of dirt and gravel branching off of it were deserted, as any capable person was either fighting, or was too young, old or simply incapable to man their duties and instead found shelter.

He should have been out there, given an old rifle and sent to defend their home alongside Vance, but his previous life made that impossible. Too valuable, the colonel had said, but he had promised that his role was more important in saving the Haven. And it was the reason why they were skimming the fortified district of West Thumb, with its wide power plant that occupied the center of the military base. There, beside it, was the control tower that would oversee their operation, but ultimately their destination was beyond the district, at the bank where the basin began.

On the bank of the lake was the 'briefing room', only consisting of an open dark green tent and some chairs that were occupied by his wingmen. The quad bike stopped some distance away from it, and Bill dismounted, bidding Stacey a goodbye and telling her to stay safe, before approaching them.

His wingmates had turned to face him, and one of them stepped out of the tent. Blonde hair, with wide shoulders and a build that rivaled Bill's, Carl Sanders held his hand out and Bill clasped it.

"You look like shit, Bill." Carl said with a grin, firmly shaking his hand and pulling it in a little tug of war.

"I _feel_ like shit." he said, losing the small fight and extracting his hand in a grimace, flexing it before issuing regular handshakes to Paul Kelly and Lina Reyes, soft enough so as to not crack their fingers. Their greetings were curt, and Bill smiled at each in turn, but sobered when he saw colonel Potley waiting beside a standing map of Yellowstone. "Colonel." he greeted, "That bad already that you need us?"

"Not as you think, thank God." he said, turning to the other wingmen. "I have to make this brief boys, and girl. You're slated to be in the air in ten minutes." Potley pointed at a northern section of the park. "XCOM needs our help. To relieve our boys in the north, XCOM wants to airdrop men and send in their gunships to strike the enemy's flank and base, but puppet anti-air will make that impossible. Don't worry, these are short-range missiles, but the General wants you in and out as quickly as possible. Plan's still sorta the same. You'll use laser-guided bombs to strike these positions which have been laster tagged, not by us, but by XCOM this time around. Then burn hard for home. There, that about covers it, any questions?"

Carl raised a hand. "There flying saucers we should be worrying about?" he asked

"XCOM has told us that these saucers hadn't been seen in more than a decade. If ADVENT had them, then they would've used them by now. Come on fellas, time's ticking." he finished with spread hands, and when the moment of silence between the pilots and the colonel stretched for far too long, his hands came together in a clap. "Good, strap on and stay alive. I'll watch your progress from the tower. Dismissed."

They all saluted in unison, and departed from the briefing just the same, walking briskly towards the nearby would-be mounds of grass beside the lake. When they should have separated however, Carl stuck close, and then and there Bill knew what he was going to do. He was going to talk him into it. Once the others were far enough away, Bill breathed out in defeat, slowing down his steps to allow Carl to reach him.

"Bill, come on man." Carl said, bringing an arm about his shoulder as they both walked. "You're falling apart right now. I don't like it as well as you do, but I had to take mine. Else I wouldn't be here."

"I know, man, it's just that… It took some time for me to get off of it back in the day, and that shit sucked." Although it happened close to twenty years ago, he did not want to remember the first days of withdrawal, stuck on the damned woods after being shot down by a freaking flying saucer. "I... forgot my go-pill anyway."

"I know. Here." Brad snuck a hand into an open pocket of his flight suit and retrieved a plastic-wrapped red capsule. Bill eyed it warily, distaste flowing into his mouth. "I'm sorry, but I told the Colonel that you would be like this."

"Carl..." Bill began, trying to bury that small feel of betrayal, but by God he felt tired.

"Come on Billy, it's just this once." he pleaded with a faceful of worry, "I don't want to scrape you off of the ground because you couldn't get a good night's sleep."

"Make that a week." He grumbled, scratching the back of his head as he sighed and looked at the dirt floor. He hated the fact that Carl was right, and although he didn't want to take the pill, he needed to. _Just this once._ He thought, bringing his eyes up to glare at the pill."Fine, fine. I'll take it." Bill could only concede, taking the bag and placing it in his own breast pocket. "I'll get you back for this."

"Don't doubt it." Carl said, parting from him as and giving him a two-fingered salute, "Good luck on the skies, Billy!"

Bill returned the salute, watching Carl double time it to his aircraft for a moment before he turned to the concealed revetment, and the Hornet that waited within. The dirt walls, now grown with grass by the year-long ordeal of assembling the aircraft, took the shape of a horseshoe, and was topped by taut web netting, giving the illusion that it was just a flat-topped rise in the terrain. One of the four unusual mounds that lay right beside a pontoon runway, something that definitely did not scream of a hidden airfield. And the Hornet, an oldie for sure, was being tended to by a munitions crew, rolling carts and moving tools away from the aircraft.

 _They must have definitely gotten awake early for this._ Bill thought with amusement, stepping inside the impromptu hangar. Shadowed by the netting, he found the work overseer standing beside the nose of the jet, and scribbling something on a clipboard.

"Afternoon Brad. How is she doing?" he asked as he sauntered in, catching Brad Stanford who turned to him.

"Ready to go, Major Herrington." Brad said with a smile, his voice carrying a distinct southern drawl, "She may not be a Raptor, but she's easier to work with. You however..." his raised eyebrow told Bill what he meant.

"I look like I could scare away kids, I know." he joked as he settled his flying helmet onto his head and strapped it, walking towards the simple step ladder at the side of the Hornet. "Could chat some more but we gotta get this show on the road. Wasted enough time already."

"Don't worry, Major. If you hadn't, then you would have caught us with our pants down." Carl laughed as Bill began to ascend the ladder, looking towards the wing briefly to see the guided bombs strapped underneath.

He gave a low whistle. "Potley must be some charming man to get XCOM to give us these babies." he commented as he reached the top, and went to step lightly on the paneling beside the cockpit.

"You don't know the half of it." Brad said, now beside the ladder as Bill went inside the cockpit. "Oh, and go easy on the throttle if you will." his voice carried, "We haven't had the opportunity to further test the engines to their full capabilities. And please, Major, do take care of her."

"Sorry," Bill said, and although he could no longer see the man, he looked over to the ladder, "but the last time I promised that, I got shot down by an oversized frisbee."

He could imagine Brad's smile when he chuckled, "Good luck on the skies man."

"Same to you on the ground." Bill replied, hearing an incoming vehicle. "Be back shortly!"

He turned back to the task at hand, switching instruments and turning on the aircraft's systems, all born from decades-old experience and the recent practice the colonel put him through in that Simulator game of theirs that XCOM had brought. It had been enough to get him familiarized with the F/A-eighteen Hornet, an all-around good plane, though originally designed for carrier use in the navy, and was probably as old as he was. He trusted Brad and his team though, and if something failed while he was flying, then he was certainly going to haunt them all.

With the press of a button, canopy slid shut, and a moment later, he felt the clang of a latch closing around the Hornet's frontal landing gear. His head was janked backwards once, hitting the head rest before a steady pull was achieved by the vehicle down below, and soon enough he was taken out of the revetment and into the late light of the day. The skies were already turning into peach as the now-red sun was soon to meet the horizon, and the lake reflected it in a spectacular way. It almost made him forget what he needed to do.

 _Now's as good a chance as any._ Bill thought, with a sense of resignment, opening the breast pocket and taking out the plastic bag with the pill inside of it. He sighed, cursing Carl once before janking open the ziplock to take the pill, and swallowed it dry. The pill's intrusion into his throat almost made him gag, enough to cause tears to well up in his eyes, but fortunately for him, it went down the right hole. Clearing his throat, he swallowed as much as he could to get rid of the ache, and looked to his left to see the other revetments with their respective Hornets, and to his front, where the pontoon and the setting sun were.

This runway ran parallel to the length of the bank, a bit less than twenty-five meters wide and three hundred meters long, made of wood and held up by ballast tanks at the edges. A good length for fighters designed for carrier use, though he would need to use the afterburner to get off all the same. He felt more than he heard the latch disengage from the landing wheel's strut, and he only needed to see through the rearview mirror to spot the rest of his wingmen get into a line for take off.

It was almost funny. Decades ago he would have had cameras to see his surroundings, providing a full three hundred and sixty degree view of his surroundings. Comfortable seats made of the highest quality fabrics, and screens with an appealing user interface. And now everything just felt old fashioned, scavenged, and mended. Even the hanging tree-shaped car deodorant couldn't get rid of the smell of decay, but it was what they had.

He shook his head, and attached the rebreather mask to his helmet, and the microphone in it to transmit. "Alright, Lancer Squadron, report in and make it snappy, over." he ordered as he checked his fighter's systems on the screens. They were already late.

"Lancer-One, good to go Lancer-Leader." Carl responded.

"Lancer-Two, all green here." came Lina.

"Lancer-Three, green." at last, came Paul.

"Roger." he transmitted to them, reading his instruments and judging them optimal, before switching to the control tower's frequency. "Flight control, this is Lancer-Leader, ready for take off, over." he said, looking over to the far side of the lake where the stubby tower could be found on the West Thumb. It took a moment before a reply arrived.

"Roger Lancer Squadron, we're a-go. Happy hunting." Colonel Potley, now Papa Valkyrie, responded, and Bill huffed a nervous laugh as he faced the runway again with a grim determination. He had his wings, and now it was the time to jump out the nest. There was a man standing on a marooned boat attached to the pontoon, his signaller in giving him the go to launch and to tell the others to wait their turn. He was giving him the go-ahead.

"Let's see how these girls hold." he muttered, and steadily pushed the throttle lever all the way up, settling it on its afterburner. The engines at his back roared to life, reverberating throughout the entire aircraft as he kept stepping on the brake pedal. The signaller held his palm out, and a second later he swung it towards the sun, and Bill let go. Again he was jerked back as the plane accelerated, now nestled deeper into the uncomfortable seat as he sucked the small g's that came with the acceleration. He didn't need to do anything but ride it out, letting the partially extended flaps of his wings carry him into the air, as he squinted and silently cursed against the sun on his eyes.

Fifty meters, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred…

With a slight pull of the control stick, the shuddering stopped, and once again in twenty years, he felt nothing beneath his feet. Through the canopy, Bill saw as he rose above the lake, past the treetops and away into the sky, free. Free at last from the ground, he'd recovered his wings and was once again soaring through the air. Bill found himself laughing, a sudden euphoria overwhelming him as he folded the wings and maneuvered to circle around the lake, low but with enough height to see the entire Haven. It was amazing, to be unable to see the twenty years of work from up in the air, as most of it was hidden under fake trees and nets. One would never guess that tens of thousands of people lived here, hidden, and that fact was enough for Bill to chuckle again. At what? He didn't know, but he just found it funny.

It was also strange; for once, he did not feel tired, and he felt and sensed everything around the cockpit. The gauges, the navball, the compass, the wind whooshing past the canopy, the black screens with their green-tinted texts…

 _The pill._ Bill realized, mildly sobering as a sense of disappointment made itself known. _For being old, that shit worked fast._ Amphetamines were liberally used in the air force to keep one awake and alert during long operations, and it had taken him cruel days of being lost in the woods and suffering from withdrawal to accept the fact that he had been abusing them. Afterwards, when he had settled in with Vance and started their little carpentry shop, he'd never he would see a go-pill again, and was glad for it, up until the colonel gave him a small package to fix his sleep cycle. And immediately afterwards he had thrown them away.

Through his musings, he kept note of the others taking off from the floating runway, with Paul, the last one, having some difficulty in direction due to a sudden wave jostling the pontoon. Though Bill and Carl were previous fighter pilots, Lina and Paul used to pilot helicopters, and thus they were the ones that took more shifts in the simulator to get to handle a fixed-wing aircraft well. It paid off, as the both of them were now flying along with him and Carl on a loose chevron. They weren't Blue Angels, but they'd do.

"This is Lancer-Leader, Papa Valkyrie just wished us a good hunting, in and out, so no theatrics and g-sucking, how copy?" he transmitted, smiling at Lina's transmitted scoff, before Carl spoke.

"Hunting? More like dynamite fishing." he joked, and Bill snorted, slightly upping the throttle to accelerate and take him further upwards,

"No smartass jokes either Lancer-One, and stick to protocol, over." he chastised him, though he felt Carl did it to keep their situation lighthearted. For being a previous fighter pilot, Carl had gone beyond lax with their military jargon, but it was now too late to get his wingmate to study radio protocol again.

It would not be long in their wide circling that they found their window that would take them north, and with a tilt of his aircraft, they committed their approach. High and fast, he had gone well past three thousand meters in height, and clocking over twelve hundred kilometers per hour, and the only thing he could think of it was the fact that he loved it. At this pace, it would only take two minutes until their arrival, and if anything went right, then they could be in and out, just like Colonel Potley said. Simple.

Too bad for them all, things, like in life, were never that simple, and he only just needed to wait for something to go wrong. A minute after, it finally came.

"Lancer-Leader, this is Lancer-One, I'm being painted by radar, over." Carl said, and soon enough a beeping began to sound from Bill's instruments.

"Roger, here too, Lancer-One. Lancer Squadron, report in, over."

Their voices mixed, but they confirmed the same thing. They were being locked on by a targeting system.

"Thought they didn't have the ordnance to shoot us down." Lancer-Two said, and Bill had to agree with her. Whatever the enemy had, there was no way they could evade it.

"This is Lancer-Leader, cut the chatter and stick to the plan people." Bill ordered, still hearing that nagging beeping. "Could be just an alarm system on their part to detect us, so prepare to-"

Red tracers cut through the air in front of him in wild arcs, and Bill's first instinct was to roll to his right as a dotted crimson pillar had come straight for him. The world flipped around him, the sense of vertigo sudden and almost nauseating him before he righted himself, and had to do it again due to another approaching arc of bullets. He sucked the g's, forcing himself to breath as he fought to not get shot out of the sky again. It was a standard dodging maneuver, go sideways and then pull up, and the entire time he was doing it he kept his hand on his flare dispersal, even though his damned radar-detection alarm kept beeping the entire damned time.

He kept his breathing steady, his heart hammering inside his chest, up until he could no longer see tracers around his canopy. The entire situation could have lasted more or less forty seconds, and as he calmed himself down, Bill wondered how in the hell could they target them this far up with autocannon fire. Four and a half thousand meters in the air, the only things that could target them were either long range surface-to-air missiles or intercepting fighters, not anti-aircraft artillery.

"Lancer Squadron, report." he transmitted, and to his dread realized that they had overshot their target.

"This is Lancer-Three, took a glancing hit on the left wing. Miniscule damage, over." Bill heard, and nodded out of habit. However, there was a pause, right where Lancer-Two should have reported in her status, and that's when the radio crackled to life.

"This is Lancer-One," Carl paused, and his tone sounded tired, or somber even, "Lancer-Two was shot down. I repeat, we lost Lancer-Two. Over." And there it was, the first gut punch that blew away that small wave of elation he felt earlier.

"Roger, Lancer-One." he swallowed, and sighed. "I'll call Papa Valkyrie, out."

"Papa Valkyrie, this is Lancer Squadron, do you read?" he called, looking on his rear-view mirror on the canopy to see if he could spot his squadron.

"Lancer Squadron, this is Papa Valkyrie, sitrep, over." Colonel Potley's voice crackled out with mild static. A jamming station could be nearby, but the colonel's voice carried well enough to be understood, so he made his report.

"Papa Valkyrie, this is Lancer-Leader. Initial approach thwarted. Lancer-Two has been shot down by triple-A fire. I say again, Lancer-Two has been shut down by triple-A, please advise, over." he waited, lowering the throttle to minimize speed. He looked upwards again to the mirror, now spotting two sets of wings following him loosely, but not three. Bill could only hope that Lina lived and her ejection seat worked without a hitch.

"Lancer Squadron, this is Papa Valkyrie," the colonel's voice came about a minute after, "scout elements confirmed enemy usage of a point-defense system to target you. Radar-based, and with an unknown range. Recommended approach vector is low-altitude, through the north-west towards the south-east. It will give you enough cover to do your assault."

Bill considered the info, as he was flying towards the north. If they swung west, then they can drop to maybe fifteen hundred meters or even below that to make that run, but the bombs… Bill shook his head. _I will think of something._

"Roger, Papa Valkyrie, would prefer more options, but we will carry it out. Over."

"It's what we have, Major. I'm sorry." whether it was for Lina, or their poor options, Bill couldn't fault him for it. It was what needed to be done.

"You got my wings back, Papa Valkyrie, we'll carry it out. Out." he closed the connection, switching it over to his squad as he began to bank westward. This far north, he was positive they were deep in Montana. "This is Lancer-Leader, we're going back in, low and fast, to hit'em hard. Over."

"It's time for payback for Lancer-Two." Carl said, again avoiding radio protocol, though Bill could sympathise with his message.

"Roger Lancer-Leader, following your lead, out." Paul answered.

Again, he nodded to no one, checking his fuel gauge to see if they could afford the run. With only twenty-nine hundred liters of fuel to his name, it was just enough to complete their mission and head back home, but no more. The colonel had been clear to them days before that there was not enough jet fuel for prolonged operations, and XCOM could only manage to bring enough for four very fuel inefficient aircraft, but they would make do. He always did.

Thankfully for them, XCOM had somehow managed to integrate a GPS screen to their instruments, and although Bill wondered where in the hell they managed to get a global positioning system, he took it as a blessing. He had no maps or general knowledge of any landmarks of the American northwest, with the only exception being the Rocky Mountains, far away and near the no-go zone of Washington State. The site of the alien-controlled supercity of Cascadia.

The screen told him he was now above the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, and here, it was time to go back home. He banked again, a sharper one that made him suck a moderate amount of g forces. It was almost instinct now on what he had to do. Force yourself to breathe, whistle if you have to, and you won't blackout. Keep the blood on your head and don't let it go to your feet. The first time he did it, it had been a spooky situation. The way the tunnel vision crept in, how it felt to weight more than six times the usual, and how color drained from everything.

It was the closest he felt to dying, and that almost gave him a panic attack then. Now, however, after twenty years of being grounded, it was welcome to him, and soon enough the navball was set between south and west. Two hundred kilometers away and now on approach, he pitched the aircraft downwards to reduce his altitude and passively increase his speed. They were late before, now, they could miss their chance to save Yellowstone. He would not let that happen.

Gone even below the thousand meter mark, he kept a certain height so as to be able to drop his ordnance where they needed to be, wherever they were meant to be. Those scouts better have their lasers on target, or this would have all been for nothing. If that offensive the colonel mentioned is underway, then they needed to hurry.

Though Brad cautioned him against it, he settled the throttle on its maximum, feeling the intensifying push and roar of the engines. The Hornet's maximum speed was nineteen hundred kilometers per hour, and the plane rattled at the pressure it was going through. If he were to turn now, he would go far beyond his capabilities to sustain g forces, which is why this pass had to be perfect. A simple slip up, or just meandering about in their airspace will put them all in a fiery grave.

Eighty kilometers away now, the GPS screen told him he was going to go over two patches of mountains and hills, the last one being Black Mountain. It would work with and against them in the approach, leaving a window that lasted less than a minute for the targeting system to lock-on to their target, and then release. A tight fit, and anything could go wrong. Bill smirked, taking note that his mind was trying to think on ways this could fail. It would only fail if he let it, and he always completed his missions, whether they went as planned, or improvisation was needed.

"This is Lancer-Leader, spread out and count your targets! Neutralizing the easternmost emplacement will be my priority, over." he transmitted, and saw on the rearview mirror how his wing dispersed.

Now over the second small range of mountains and hills, their tops close to his aircraft, the abandoned town of West Yellowstone loomed on the plains ahead. Twenty kilometers away, most of the puppets were concentrated on the airfield, with supply depot beside it to allow the assault in his home to continue. There were so many tempting targets: maybe he could strike the enemy headquarters, the long lines of logistic vehicles, or the fuel depot nearby, but he stuck to the mission.

Two beepings overlapped in the cockpit, the radar tagging him, and the lock-on of the guided bombs to their targets. The enemy ground-to-air missile emplacements were set on the south-east perimeter, and his targeting system counted four. Though it did not seem like much, who knew what they were capable of? The outrageous range those supposed point-defense guns had on them had removed Lina out of the equation, which left them with three Hornets against four targets on a single bombing run.

He hadn't counted that little detail before, but he would complete his mission.

Rapidly approaching, he saw the oncoming streaks of red racing towards them. The targeting system began to give a steady beeping, then a flatline, and with a flip of a switch, he released the guided bombs. The entire aircraft shuddered, a quick succession of thumps making his eyes squeeze shut to await the deafening roar of the air, and freefall.

Instead, all he heard was his muffled heavy breathing, the shuddering having lasted but a second. With a small amount of trepidation, he opened his eyes, seeing his cockpit just the way he'd seen it before, heading eastward, but banking slightly to the right.

Bill shook his head, taking deep breaths and turning to his right, seeing the why to the banking. His right wing had been holed a dozen times, with gaps ranging from perhaps an inch across to fist-sized. However, they did not seem to hit anything important, as with a flick of the control stick, the paneling moved flawlessly, but the aerodynamics were still screwed.

He sighed against the heavy beating of his heart, and called, "Lancer Squadron, report in. Over."

"This is Lancer-One," the voice of Carl thankfully transmitted, "heading southward back to base. Running low on fuel. Over."

"This is Lancer-Three," Paul transmitted, "running low on fuel and heading back to base. Requesting a sitrep on enemy targets from Papa Valkyrie. Over."

"Roger Lancer-Three," Bill replied, "I'll call Papa Valkyrie and-" he stopped when he saw his fuel gauge.

It was plummeting.

His blood chilled at the sight, and he didn't need to do calculate to guess if he would make it back home. He wouldn't even make it half-way. "Shit." he muttered, "Fuck!" he yelled next, and repeated it over and over again in the next five seconds before he realized that he had been transmitting. He took a deep breath, and began to turn northward, switching over to Papa Valkyrie.

"Papa Valkyrie," he called, steadying his voice as best he could from his earlier outburst. "this is Lancer-Leader, do we have confirmed hits, over?"

"Lancer Squadron, this is Papa Valkyrie, target neutralization confirmed. We have one left, but there's nothing we can do. Head on back home, over." Bill nodded, sighing as he sunk into his seat. If Vance ever got ahold of him, he was going to kill him.

"Bill…" Carl transmitted, and damn it did he hate to follow protocol. "What's going on?"

For a moment, Bill did not say anything, turning then towards the west, and then south in a somewhat sharp turn. He was going to cut in it close. Really. Fucking. Close. But there was no other alternative.

"Bill, do you read-"

"Took a hit on the fuel line. Won't be making it back home." Bill said, pushing the throttle lever forward, and the roar of the engines intensified as he sank further into his seat. "But I gotta finish the mission. Go back home. I'll take care of it. Out." He switched off the radio, and sighed. "Sorry."

To the colonel? To his squadron? Vance? All of them maybe. The town of West Yellowstone once again was in his sights, three pillars of smoke climbing to the sky as ant-like men scurried about on the ground. The radar alarm began to blare, and he steadied his breath this time, waiting for the flatline.

The engine died, the flatline came, his target locked, and then came the shuddering, wrenching, and roar of air.


	3. Flashes and Ashes

Explosions resonated in the lands to the north, the whistling and sizzling of missiles launching returning again and again as they tried to hinder the enemy advance. Guided missiles were still being fired, shells were still being launched from the mortars at their back, and artillery still boomed ever so closer. Curtains of smoke obscured the horizon, and at their base, the forest fires that creeped closer, but none of them would hinder the attackers, as they seemed to just be one kilometer away now. Oliver was still crouched and on his binoculars, while Jebediah was at the machine gun, prepped and ready to fire. But it was not their time.

Deep and powerful gunfire roared near the treeline at the remainder of the kilometer, beyond the Firehole River and near the road that led east and then north. In that road, there was a column of a dozen Humvees speeding down and stopping for nothing, most of them armed while some were the designated ambulances that had ferried out the wounded throughout the course of the battle. Like them, for hours did battalion after battalion retreat from the basin and gave up kilometers of ground, while artillery fire would intensify for a minute, and then abate for half an hour. And now it was getting dark, with the flashes of artillery fire becoming more pronounced by the setting sun.

"Artillery's not getting any closer." Jebediah remarked, seeing that the larger and brighter explosions kept themselves roughly a kilometer away from their position, while the smaller pops of mortar fire only crept closer. It was then that Jebediah realized one thing. No one was talking. Oliver had only given an acknowledging grunt, watching the retreating Humvees with his binoculars, bright and easy to spot by their headlights as they drove south and away from the fighting. He couldn't even hear any chatter from the men outside of their foxhole or at the ones down below, who not some time ago couldn't keep their mouths shut. Only the sound of war just past the spring gave life to his ears, explosions, the deep drum of autocannons, and small arms fire.

Infantry began to appear on the tree line to the left, theirs, and running south towards them as smoke cover seeped behind them. Keeping to their tails were four Bradleys following suit, reversing in a firing-retreat as they let off staccato after staccato of their cannon fire to the unseen enemy in the smoke-filled forest. The smoke refracted the fire, and like a beacon, beamed itself with light with every strike of high-explosive shells fired from the fighting vehicles, which made it worse to look for enemies with the naked eye. But if what Jebediah had heard was true with those armored vehicles, then they could see through it with ease, and the enemy was trapped without any visual to work with.

It was why it came as a surprise to him when suddenly one of the retreating Bradleys was struck in a flash and a bang, shrouded in smoke only to be enlightened by blinding fire. The abrupt flash of light stung his eyes, and the thunder of the explosion made him flinch, but Jebediah forced himself to look at what happened, and was met by the roar of fire as it consumed the armored vehicle. Something else struck it, this one from above, creating a loud clang that resonated throughout the white wasteland, and Jebediah then realized what it was. The singed remains of the turret.

"Jesus-fucking-Christ." Jebediah muttered, still and dumbstruck at the sight, before he managed to snap out of his reverie, and turned to swivel his machine gun to face the tree line. The Bradleys kept to their retreat, firing off bursts as they left their burning comrade behind and covered their dismounted men in their five hundred meter run. Mortar fire intensified then, blasting at the trees and letting off clouds of dust and earth that escaped the confines of the forest in gusts, up until the men at last reached their lines. Both the cannon and artillery fire were still impacting somewhere deep in the forest, but no enemy was in sight.

"The fuck are they?" Oliver asked, his rifle's barrel resting on the breastwork as he spied through the binoculars with his free hand. "Come on, you fucks!"

"They're here, Oliver." Jebediah said, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, "That's what matters. You see'em, call'em out for me."

"Yeah…" he muttered, and Jebediah patted him on the shoulder, seeking to reassure not only Oliver, but also himself. "Those fucks had to arrive late. Hope the others gave them the beating they deserve."

"I'm sure they have." Jebediah concurred, even if he didn't feel the words to be true. The heavy artillery had ceased their aimed barrages, and this time for good. He couldn't tell himself that it was because the enemy was spent, but because the crews were most likely packing their guns and retreating, just like the rest of the units that had fought in the basin. It meant that it was just their battalion standing in the way of the Puppets now, and that thought made him shiver.

The Bradleys had joined in their perimeter, driving around or over their defenses to place themselves in a good firing position without obstructing their infantry. The wreckage of the destroyed fighting vehicle was still burning, letting off a new column of smoke that joined the dozens that congregated in the sky, but Jebediah would not be able to look at the destruction any longer. Gunfire once again returned, this time cracks and thuds of oncoming fire from somewhere he could not discern, but the men down below immediately began to shout out orders, and then began to respond with the dry crackle of machine guns and the thumps grenade launchers.

The exchange continued on for minutes, bursts and cracks interwoven with exploding grenades as they waited with cold barrels and restlessness. The damned Puppets were holding their position it seemed, keeping their distance instead of showing their faces like the other times he had seen them storm their positions in the distance. It made him jittery, waiting while the others engaged them sporadically, that is before dark and large figures appeared on the road. Jebediah tapped Oliver on the shoulder, and pointed towards the oncoming armor, where Oliver turned to, looked with his binoculars, and cursed.

"Tank column." Oliver reported, holding out his binoculars for Jebediah to take. "Six hundred meters out and closing in fast on our position."

"Guess that's why their foot mobiles stopped." Jebediah noted, taking the offered binoculars and seeing through them. His gaze followed the road, where it curved at the end of the bluff and then turned northward, and there he found the tanks, sleek and black, treading on the road and so unlike their blocky counterparts. There were similarities, though in an entirely different aesthetic, with their hexagonal cannon barrels, low profile, and the angular, slanted plating on their turrets and chassis. But even with their seemingly awesome features, they looked to have been mauled, with scorch marks and dents marring their sleekness while some of the plates looked to have been torn off altogether.

"Road's full of'em." Jebediah said, trying to count them. "Jesus, there are dozens in that road alone-"

A bang imposed itself in his speech and thought, loud and almost frightening him, thinking it had been the puppets targeting them. He would've crouched down behind the breastwork had he not realized who the culprit was when the bang came again, and down range, the lead vehicle in the column exploded. A smile formed on Jebediah's mouth when found the Abrams tank down the hill, bearing its cannon on the tank column and spewing out righteous hell to avenge their comrades.

The smile disappeared when the were given their reply.

Red streaks and loud cracks from the road began to strike their positions, with thumps and tremors accompanying them as Puppet rounds found contact. With a peek over the breastwork, Jebediah saw as the enemy armor found itself stranded on the road perpendicular to them, the destroyed lead vehicle halting their advance. The tank shot again, striking one of the vehicles at the exit of the forest, of which had blown in another spectacular fireball, trapping over a dozen puppet armored vehicles in a stretch of road that was being pummeled by shells and rocket-propelled grenades.

Many seemed to have been disabled by the anti-tank fire, but the tanks had simultaneously, almost synchronized even, turned their chassis to face the line, and then began to drive out of the road, and onto the river.

"Jesus, nothing's gonna stop these assholes!" Oliver yelled over the gunfire, still on his binoculars when he shouted next, "Fuck! To the left! On the tree line - they're back!"

And to the north-west, there came the infantry. Jebediah's breath left him, seeing dozens of white automatons advance forward, followed by a horde of black-clad troopers, the former shooting their hand-held cannons into their positions down below. Jebediah swiveled his machine gun to them, aimed, and stopped himself.

Weapons cold. He reminded himself, and cursed Bourne. I can shoot now, damn it! But he restrained himself, watching helplessly as the battalion fended off the enemy.

The automatons, or MECs, as the XCOM spooks called them, were leading the charge, the soldiers behind them using them as mobile cover for the advance. It was a horde of infantry, laying down firepower towards the defensive line despite the fact that shells were landing around them and striking off their men by the score.

"Jesus fucking Christ where's the fucking lieutenant!?" Jebediah shouted, already switching off the gun's safety and bearing it on the enemy.

"Hold your fire!" He somehow heard Smith shout out, despite the fact that there was a shooting gallery waiting down beside the spring and the gun reports were overpowering any other sound. Plumes of smoke began to spread over the enemy, no more than four hundred meters away, in what seemed to be a combination of both smoke screens and white phosphorous that fell from the skies. The resulting cloud cover over the Grand Prismatic Spring and its much lesser springs had eased the shootout from the enemy's side, but the men down the hill weren't inclined to do likewise, and instead kept firing.

Jebediah could only see stray black soldiers mingling near the cloud's edges, moving sluggishly as they were shot down by the battalion, but the MECs, seemingly unscathed, marched out of the burning smoke in a row and returned fire. There were other soldiers behind them, trailing their automatons in single file as the robots took the brunt of the fire, but they could only take so much. Rockets and grenades made short work of some, while in others they only achieved in taking out chunks of their armor and limbs, but still, those damned cannons in their hands were enough to completely level a sandbag position with its complement of soldiers, and suppress large portions of the line.

Jebediah grit his teeth, but thankfully, by the grace of God maybe, did he hear the staff sergeant say the magic words. "Weapons hot! Weapons hot!" he shouted, followed by the roar of weapons fire from the company around them. Like them, Jebediah's own response was automatic.

Instead of feeling relief that he was being loosened on the leash, he corrected the machine gun to properly face the enemy, aimed, compensated for the weapon's meager bullet drop, and fired. The machine gun sputtered, firing off eight rounds per second for three towards one of the MECs with their Indian file. Somewhere from three hundred to four hundred meters away, all Jebediah could see from his burst was sparks, and the black shapes behind the MEC suddenly falling to the ground. The MEC still kept going however, but Jebediah, following Thomas's example in maintaining his fire, moved to another line of men and continued.

Their small surprise for the enemy had seemingly caught them off guard, as the columns of troopers suddenly halted, and then did Jebediah start to hear the cracks of oncoming fire towards them, but he didn't stop. He aimed, let loose another barrage, and had Oliver confirm his kills and where to move on to next. It was systematic with an automated response. Just like how they had trained, and so far away from what he had dreamed this moment to be. It felt lackluster, as he aimed and felled another file near the tanks while their supposed MEC protector continued on towards their line, oblivious to the death of its charges.

The infantry and tanks, however, just kept coming. The light pounding of the mortars seemed to not be enough to make the puppets relent in their attack, and the heavy shells of the howitzers had stopped long ago to make a difference here. With how many he was seeing and shooting, Jebediah could only guess at how many there were. A division worth of enemies maybe? Against a battalion? Why are they rushing in like this?

Another burst, and a clump of soldiers that had taken shelter behind a felled MEC slumped. Jebediah didn't know if they were dead or just taking cover, but it didn't matter. He moved on, and fired into another group of puppets that had gotten too close to the line, some hundred meters away, all the while the rest of the company around them were shooting and giving them their own piece of their mind. In those moments, there was nothing but a recounting of his training, with most of his senses thrown into the back of his mind. He wouldn't be distracted by the forest fires in the distance, the smell of the acrid, spent gunpowder from the conventional weaponry, and the reveal of the black bipedal tanks that emerged from the tree line, not until his weapon suddenly clicked empty.

Jebediah blinked in confusion at first, his sights on an advancing MEC with its charge behind it, before his mind's tunnel vision cleared up and his training kicked in, but was beaten to the punch by Oliver. The man had rounded him and was removing the spent magazine from its holster on the weapon when Jebediah saw a multitude of red lights from his peripheral vision, and he turned to find half a dozen walking tanks standing tall near the tree line. For a second, these lights turned to a blinding flash, and as he squinted, the light was gone, and instead he was blown back.

He landed roughly on his back, disoriented and deaf by the fierce ringing in his ears. Jebediah gasped to let air into his lungs, and instead coughed when he let dirt and acrid smoke into his mouth. Opening his eyes, the world was bathed in smoke beyond their foxhole, the web netting gone and the day's fading light dimmed by the cloud of thrown earth, and he pushed himself to a sitting position while trying to gather his thoughts to make out just what in God's name had happened. He was covered in dust, dirt, and grit, and Oliver, having fallen on his side and cradling his upper arm, was in pain, his mouth agape and mouthing something.

No, not mouthing. Jebediah realized, hearing it dimly through the ringing. "Medic." his voice came dimly, and he was shouting it. Alarmed, Jebediah crawled over to him, and saw that the sleeve on his left arm was bloodied; a dark red that stained the shades of tan and brown of his camouflage. Jebediah immediately started palming around Oliver's legs, but didn't find what he was looking for. "Where's your tourniquet?"

When Jebediah did not hear anything, he crawled over to his grimacing face, and repeated the question. "Where's your fucking tourniquet?!"

"Bag!" Oliver gasped out, and already did Jebediah wanted to smack him, but he relented, and instead leaned over to his backpack, and emptied it of its contents on the ground for lack of time. He did the same with the first-aid kit, and grabbed the tourniquet from the pile of bandages and antiseptic he would have to use later if that fucking medic did not arrive.

"Medic!" Jebediah shouted, hoping no one else had gone deaf as he turned to Oliver, "Someone get me a fucking medic!" Jebediah didn't know how his mother did it at the clinic, but the sight of Oliver's bloodied arm was already nauseating him. The hole in the sleeve was the size of a niquel, but the flesh of the arm below it looked torn, almost like a loose flap of skin. He swallowed what he hoped was not bile, as he wrapped and cinched Oliver's arm at the armpit and the upper bicep to stem the leakage of blood.

A pat on his shoulder, and Jebediah, startled, whipped around to find another man in their fighting hole, unslinging a backpack and crouching beside him. "L.T.'s been yelling you to get back on the MG." The man's voice was dim, and he nodded towards the vacant turret. "Move it! I got him."

Jebediah looked at Oliver once, and then nodded to the medic, standing up and heading towards the machine gun. With some trepidation, he looked at the battlefield, with the dissipating smoke of the crater that marked the Abrams's demise, but that was not the only one.

Their entire line was in disarray. Large swathes of it cratered like the one where their tank had been a minute ago. Meanwhile the puppets, now largely unmolested by their firing, were advancing forward with their walking tanks and tracked armored fighting vehicles. There were some men that still kept to the fight, launching rocket rounds into the enemy armor and shooting into the advancing infantry, but it seemed most were still reeling from that attack, and were slowly coming to the fight, But they were slow, and the enemy was now less than a hundred hundred meters away.

Jebediah grabbed the handles of his machine gun and completed the process of reloading it, picking a magazine from a holster in his chest rig and slotting it in the side of the weapon. There was no need to cycle it, and when he aimed at the approaching black mass of puppets and pulled the trigger, his weapon fired without issue. For the next minute, all four barrels of the machine gun roared as they spewed out soft iron-coated tungsten pellets, glowing a hot red as they streaked the air and fell on the shooting range presented to him.

He had been told these puppets were not human beings, and yet the fact that they had the same anatomy greatly unsettled him. But, he needed to only see their battered line to understand why they were here, and the fact that Thomas and their company were still in the fight lent some comfort in the mindless slaughter, but he knew it wasn't enough. Heavy weapons fire began to rain around them, spewing mounds of dirt and dust from the earth in front of him that made him duck. The loud cracks and whizzes of oncoming projectiles were beginning to overpower his recovering hearing, and he couldn't for the life of him be brave enough to once again go back up to shoot.

"I'm pinned!" he shouted, only to be greeted by the sight of an empty foxhole, littered with bloodied cotton, a pile of Oliver's belongings, and a Puppet rifle strewn on the floor, all of it bereft of his companion and his medic. Helpless, he flinched at the whiss of a bullet, feeling the slight thuds and tremors as some struck the breastwork as if someone had begun to take a sledgehammer to it. It felt as if the entire world had begun to rock, a deep rumbling interposing itself in the firefight that made Jebediah wonder if this was it, that Armageddon had made its debut at last. His heart hammered, his muscles did not want to inch forward in any way, and the ground began to shake.

It had been a simple tremor at first, before Jebediah found himself losing his balance once more as the world seemingly wanted to move away from him. The rocking proved to be too much, and he soon fell alongside his clattering machine gun and tripod as explosions and pure chaos filled his ears. Not knowing what was happening or what to do, he curled into a ball and waited it out, jostling around the dirt and rocks and praying for it all to stop.

He could not help but think that the enemy was smashing through their defenses, killing every single soldier down there and now coming to them in the hill. What use had tanks and artillery been, if those fucking walking tanks had effortlessly destroyed their positions in seconds? Oh God... Jones, Stanley, Fick... everyone he knew in the rest of the battalion executed or taken away to some alien extermination camp. After all, that was the fate that awaited them all, wasn't it? Why the fuck did they even think they had a chance?

It felt like an eternity, but the tremors subsided, gentler and fading into nothingness. Jebediah, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, tested waters by planting a firm sole on the ground as he stood, feeling his back and hair damp by something warm as he looked about on the battlefield below him. The gunfire was still present, along with the suspicious rumbling, and out there, Jebediah saw the cause of it.

The Prismatic Spring was still discharging, a pillar of white steam stretching tens of meters high almost to the height of the hill he stood on. The rim and wasteland around it was cracked, and high up in the air, Puppet gunships droned about as they swept and circled with their rattling nose-guns and firing missiles from their pods, striking the ground in thunderous pops… Right at the enemy.

Jebediah frowned, looking in sheer confusion at the surreal sight of gunships striking their own forces, catching the infantry out in the open while the walkers and tanks were taken apart by missile strikes. There were dozens of them in the air, some flying low and coming in to land in rows in front of their defensive line, opening their side-doors and revealing the black-clad men inside. The sight of them and their proximity prompted Jebediah to act, but with a mere glance at his strewn machine gun on the dirt, decided on the quickest course of action: Oliver's rifle.

He grabbed it, feeling its weight and the strange, almost plastic texture on his hands for a moment, before turning back towards the breastwork, where he found the troopers with their rifles aimed towards the north. Jebediah tried to control his frantic breathing, his heart hammering relentlessly and his head light, but he focused, and rested the barrel of the rifle on top the breastwork. He had killed so many of them not some minutes ago, but the feeling of trepidation followed him as he aimed through the rifle's built-in sight, displaying a red reticle and the range at which his targets were. The dot found the armored head, the display showing that it was a hundred and thirty-two meters away, and Jebediah's finger tightened on the trigger...

It took him all his willpower to not squeeze it, and instead he stared at the man he was about to kill. His armored head was not like a Puppets. It was round, not square and bulky, and then Jebediah saw the white lines on the plates of his armor. Human.

His breath left him, eyes wide at what he was about to do. And then he heard it, the cheering. He took his eyes off of the sight, and down the hill and up where he was, Jebediah heard the shouting of praises and the hooting of men and women, juxtaposed with explosions and gunfire from the battle not some hundred meters away. As the Pu… Human, troopers advanced forward, aided by their gunships, the remainders of what was left of the defensive line came out of their dugouts and trenches, embracing each other and joining both in the general jubilee, and the advance.

Jebediah however, just stood there, dumbstruck at the sudden turns of events. He simply could not believe it. One moment he was sure that they were done for, and now… they were saved.

He felt his legs give out, and instead of preventing it, he controlled the fall, his ass striking hard against the rough ground and his back suffering the same fate. He lied there, holding Oliver's rifle tight against his chest as he closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to fight off the light-headedness and the bile that churned in his throat. Was he dying? After all this, and he was dying? Jebediah whined, throwing off the rifle and palming his chest rig, fingers trying to find any holes that he had never once noticed.

He found nothing. No holes, no blood. He was unhurt. He was okay… Then why did he want to laugh so much? His chest bubbled with a contained chuckle, and all Jebediah could think of what his mother had told him of blood-loss induced euphoria… but this was different. He let the chuckles out, low and snorting, knowing well within himself that this joy was somehow justified. Was it because he had survived? Or because he at last had his first battle, and wasn't cowed this time? He didn't know, and frankly, he no longer cared. With that thought, along with a heavy sigh, Jebediah closed his eyes and left himself on the ground, hearing the yells of joy and the gunfire mingling together in the distance.

It wasn't until he heard the crunch of someone's footstep that he opened them again, catching the sight of Staff Sergeant Smith at the edge of his foxhole, crouched and with an up-turned frown on his wrinkled, dirtied face.

"Norman, you good?" he asked, and Jebediah smiled.

"Thought I wasn't, sir." He answered, and the staff sergeant visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping and the worried frown reverting back into nothing. The old man smiled.

"Then what are you doing on the floor? What, cherry popped that hard enough?" he asked, and Jebediah could not bother to be mad at the jab. He smiled, and then exhaled, rubbing his face as he stared at the dark purple sky. "You could say that, sir." He answered after a moment of silence. It was then that he remembered a certain someone, as he tilted his head to look at his upside-down staff sergeant. "Oliver doing okay?"

Smith snorted, "Big baby got a booboo and won't stop crying about it." He looked upwards at the sound of gunfire in the distance, before looking back at Jebediah. "Can you stand? I don't think Javier can attend you to give you his prince charming kiss right now."

"Just my luck." Jebediah said, still feeling the smile at his lips as he turned on th ground, and pushed himself upwards to stand. His legs strangely strained against his weight, and he leaned on the walls of his foxhole to steady himself and stay upright. "Woah," Jebediah took deep breaths, looking towards a concerned sergeant. "I'm good. Just dazed… I guess."

"Yeah, that happens." Smith offered a hand, and Jebediah clasped it, planting a foot at the top of the wall and letting the old man pull him upwards with a grunt. He almost fell forward when he came back to the outside world, held back by the sergeant with a hand on his shoulder. "Sure you're alright?"

"Yeah." Jebediah replied, heady at the sharp smell of spent gunpowder and burnt… something. Along with the ever-darkening forest around them, it simply seemed as if he was in another reality altogether. "Just… I need some time."

Smith nodded, clasping Jebediah by the shoulder. "Bourne said that we're holding for now, so take five and drink up. If our luck holds, then we'll be home by midnight."

Jebediah smiled at that, and for a moment, he was in disbelief, shaking his head as his arms rested on his hips. He chuckled, "I can't believe I made it through."

"Hey," Smith snapped his fingers at Jebediah's face, "do as I say. Take five and rest. We're not out of the fray yet, and the rest of the battalion needs us."

At the mention of the battalion, Jebediah immediately sobered up, and he felt the blood drain from his face. "Shit, the battalion-"

"Hey, hey!" Smith grabbed his other shoulder with his remaining hand, forcing Jebediah to look at the man's gray eyes. "Calm down. We'll soon go down to help them, but right now, we have to pick ourselves up."

Jebediah's fist tightened, teeth clenched at the thought of the rest of the men and the smoking craters he'd seen. "Fuck," he managed to get out, shaking his head. "Just tell me we have men on them."

"We do. Now, rest." He let go of Jebediah, stepping aside and slapping his back roughly. Jebediah stumbled forward, turning to glare at his sergeant, but could only do so at the back of his head, for he had already begun to walk away. He sighed and grumbled, shaking his head just because he didn't want to admit that there was some sense in Smith's words. But what could he do otherwise? Visit Oliver? He snorted at that thought, turning towards the ruined basin, cracked and burning in the distance. Christ, how many did we engage? He wondered, seeing the piles of black-armored bodies littering their killing zone. Strangely enough, he felt nothing towards them. Those things, not people, had come here to kill them all, and he could only guess what happened if they got their hands on you. Gulags? Outright execution? Those videos of the Havens being attacked had been burned into his mind, and so he could only feel satisfaction at their own work.

"Let them come." He muttered, and headed off to his foxhole.

* * *

Author's Note:

I know what you're gonna say, "OI YE WANKSTAIN, THIS CHAPTER'S HALF OF WHAT YOU UPLOADED! AND AFTER MONTHS OF NOTHING NO LESS!"

The latter is kinda the reason why I uploaded it. This part of the chapter took me so long, so I wanted it out of the way so that I could focus on what happens AFTER it, and, not to mention, to better fit some scenes that I had planned to come after it. And also a bit of procrastination, laziness, and stagnation had a little bitty bit something to do with it, but let's not focus on that. After all I'm infallible and perfect. Period.

Also, during the course of the last months, I at last understood how the military hierarchy actually works and what the responsibilities are for each position. So instead of starting this entire fic ALL OVER AGAIN, I decided instead to kick myself and continue on. No, Bourne should not be this old veteran guy that tells the platoon what exercises to do and such because he's a lieutenant, not a platoon sergeant. LTs are usually at the same age as the enlisted because they're the most junior of officers. I got that wrong and damn it if I don't kick myself for that one, but what can I do eh? Start all over again? Ha! I only did that six times before I uploaded the first chapter! Just ask Generatedname.

Anyway, I hope this chapter's good'an'all for you guys. See ya with another chapter in twenty years.


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